


mr. rattlebone

by divinetock3



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Touch-Starved, ellie as wingman hell yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2020-11-08 02:22:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20827820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divinetock3/pseuds/divinetock3
Summary: settled in at jackson, joel and reader avoid their feelings for each other for their own safety.





	1. winter

**Author's Note:**

> song: mr rattlebone by matt maeson  
my first intended multi chapter fic???? this first chapter was written after the e3 trailer from last year first dropped (OOF) and with the new one out this past week i've been Feral and playing tlou obsessively and i decided to revisit bc : old man joel fuck yes fuck yes fuck yes  
we're starting out slow and steady, but as i put out more chapters We'll Get There, i promise ! idk how this'll go over but enjoy!!!!

Almost midnight, the full moon high in the obsidian-black sky, and Ellie can’t stop thinking about how beautiful the world has become in the past few hours. She’s heard stories about life before: traffic on the highway, car horns blaring, eating at a restaurant, running to the store for some late night sweets, going out on the town with a group of friends—simple pleasures she’s never experienced. A world that, although overflowing, felt lived-in. Now it’s nothing but rain and snow and sun and trees and water and animals—oh, so many animals, all so lovely in their purity. She sees the positive in either side.

But moments like this, standing outside the mess hall and staring up at the sky, head tipped completely back, she wants nothing more than to cup her hands and contain this pocket of tranquility for as long as she can hold it. Owls hoot in the distant trees surrounding Jackson, voices murmur across the way as folks ready for bed, and a cool breeze carries through the streets as winter closes in. Ellie has seen some beautiful things in her lifetime, but each time feels like the first and she wonders if she’ll ever feel this alive again.

Behind her, the lights within the mess hall are still alight. It adds to the peace; there’s an infectious joy in Jackson tonight. Snow sits layered on the ground. In the moonlight she can catch a glimpse of a snowman some of the kids had put together as she was going out for this morning’s patrols. His woolen hat sits crooked on his head. Her eyes linger on him, unable to piece such an innocent sight with some of the things she’s seen growing up. How can this all exist in the same world?

Despite it, Ellie enjoys the present. _This is the closest I’ll ever get to Before_, she thinks to herself. Nights like this when she feels infinite and impossible and untouchable—all the things the world has told her she isn’t, that’s what she is right now.

_Significant_, her brain stubbornly supplies. That too.

She can still taste Dina on her lips, remember the warmth of their closeness and the way Dina’s eyes met hers. It twists her belly, makes her feel like a little kid all over again because—God, she has a juvenile crush—on her _best friend_, for fuck’s sake. How corny could she get? Moments of doubt slip into the tranquil barrier of Ellie’s mind: _Did that kiss mean anything? Were they just playing around? Was Dina more drunk than Ellie thought? What if Ellie is taking this more seriously than Dina is? Ellie always seems to care about people more than they care about her—Oh, man—_

“Got a drink for me, beanstalk?”

Ellie blinks out of the heavy reverie. “Hey.”

[Name] gestures loosely towards the mess hall. The door is shut, but the light from within is pouring out onto the snow at their feet. “They all closed up?”

“Not yet,” says Ellie. “I took a break from helping clean up to come out here.”

“What for?”

“Just…staring at the stars. Enjoying the cold.”

“It’s nice out tonight, huh?” She tips her head back as Ellie had been, lets a shiver pass through her and takes in the vast sky. _How can the sky be so big?_ “I’ve always loved winter. Reminds me of home.”

“I wanted to be an astronaut.”

[Name] arches a brow. “No kidding.”

“To be alone up in space. The silence.”

A snort. “That would scare the shit out of me, if anything.”

Ellie shrugs, lame and self-conscious. “I was a kid.”

“What’re you saying? You still are a kid.” [Name] ruffles Ellie’s already-messy hair. It’s a maternal gesture that warms Ellie’s chest for a second, but then it seems to seep away and she’s left out in the cold again—in more ways than one. “I wasn’t joking about that drink. You got some inside?”

Ellie blinks. “What? Oh. Sure. Whiskey—is that alright?”

“A drink is a drink.”

[Name] holds the door open for Ellie. A fire is lit at the opposite end, warming the room to a cozy temperature. Ellie hangs back as [Name] greets those that were left behind to clean up after everyone else. They chat amicably—“Can a girl get a drink around here? It’s been a long night”—and Ellie seats herself on one of the picnic tables that were shoved against the wall to make room for the dancing. The mess hall is practically finished, everyone packing in for the night, but she lingers. Her eyes wander to a spot in the middle of the room. 

That was where her and Dina were. 

Jesus, she really is a little kid again, isn’t she? Getting giddy over a little kiss? But it isn’t just that: Maybe she has a shot at happiness in this kind of world. _No matter what happens, you keep finding something worth fighting for._ Wise words, but the memory of them leave a bittersweet taste in Ellie’s mouth.

“Earth to Ellie.”

“What?” Her head whips up from staring at the floor, legs spread and arms rested on her knees with her hands loosely clasped. “Shit, sorry.” She straightens her spine, looking up at [Name], who stands before her looking pleased now that a glass of whiskey sits in her hand. “What’d you say?”

“Have you seen Tommy?”

“He went to bed not too long ago. He was…a little exhausted. Y’know, getting things set up, making the rounds.”

[Name] hums agreement and sits beside Ellie. A long sip, and then she rests her elbows back against the table and tips her head back with a heavy sigh. Her eyes are shut as she says, “I found a group of clickers a mile out. Too close for comfort. I think they wandered up in the past week because they certainly weren’t there last time I was out that way. I wanna get patrols out there quickly.”

“I can help with it,” offers Ellie.

A one-shoulder shrug. “I don’t see why not. Unless your old man has a problem with it.”

Ellie bristles at that. She knows nothing was really meant by it, but she’s sick of everyone seeing Joel in her. 

[Name] is perceptive enough to open an eye and glance over at Ellie. “Too far?”

“Too far,” agrees Ellie.

“Sorry. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like…I just heard you had some fun tonight.”

Ellie’s face heats like the summer sun. It must be obviously reddening because [Name] barks a laugh and hits the younger girl’s arm. She’s enjoying this way too much.

“Dina, huh? I should’ve guessed. The girl likes staring at you when you’re not looking. Like you’re something to be solved.”

It makes Ellie snort. She’s sure there’s a long list of people in Jackson wanting to know what her deal is. But she knows how it feels to be close with someone and yet be so far away. A certain someone comes to mind, but Ellie bites down the bubbling teenage angst. If she’s going to assert herself as an adult of the community, one thing she won’t do is complain about being held down by Joel. Not to mention it’s a sore spot for [Name] for completely different reasons. 

It seems Ellie is always tiptoeing around a dozen landmines that are all swamped around her and she’s only barely aware of where exactly they lay. One wrong move and this home she’s built for herself will come crumbling.

“I’m not sure what it meant, but…I enjoyed it.”

[Name] giggles and takes a sip of her glass. “I’m happy for you. I like her better than that Kat girl, I’ll tell you that—“

“Oh, you never liked Kat.”

“A delinquent.”

Ellie can’t help letting out the amused guffaw built up in her chest. “Please—what qualifies as a delinquent nowadays—“

“I don’t know, but I’m serious. I had some bad feelings about that girl.”

Ellie’s hesitates, then adds, “You were sorta right.”

“Of course I was!” The two share a warming bout of laughter until silence passes over them a moment later. Just then the few that were cleaning up wrap it up and say their goodbyes. They wave to them, and then they’re left alone. Ellie is getting seduced back into her thoughts when she hears [Name] say, “You were too good for her. That much was clear.”

The words are so sobering and so genuine that it tugs at the part of Ellie that had fallen in love with the night sky not minutes ago. The romantic side of her. Is it cheesy that her eyes are watering? Maybe. But she’s becoming more and more aware of the all that she has now: a community, friends, a purpose. If she had told fourteen year old Ellie what she would have not too far from then, she wouldn’t have believed a word of it. Who’s to say it can’t get even better from here?

“Will you dance with _me_?”

Ellie’s brow furrows. “There isn’t any music.”

“Not a problem.” She flicks the glass back and downs the rest of the alcohol and stands up. “C’mon, player, show me your moves.”

Reluctantly, albeit very amused, Ellie takes her hands and lets [Name] pull her up to her feet. They go to the center of the floor and Ellie’s hands fall to her hips as [Name] begins to move them back and forth in a synchronized rhythm. And then [Name] starts singing in a voice that the mere sound of has Ellie in stitches. [Name] spins her in and out, making her twirl until she’s nearly choking on the laughter as it gets caught in her throat. It’s a song Ellie doesn’t recognize, but she’s positive it doesn’t sound at all like this. She knows for a fact that [Name] can sing better than this—she’s heard her plenty of times while on patrol—so this is all for Ellie’s entertainment. 

_Something a mother would do._

Ellie trips over her feet and stumbles, uncontrollably laughing, as they spin around the room, hand in hand. Ellie’s hands are clammy, but [Name] seems to not care. Their laughter reverberates off the barren walls and makes the room feel ecclesiastical. Dina, [Name], Jesse—these are the people she can be her most authentic self with, and she gets to be with them every day. What has she done to deserve such charity? Ellie’s eyes dampen for the second time tonight—now from pure joy.

It takes some time before Ellie realizes they’re not alone anymore. It isn’t after the spinning has stopped and Ellie has to lean over with hands on her knees, gasping for breath, her head in vertigo, that she notices the familiar sight of Joel’s silhouette against the moonlight oozing inside. 

[Name] is almost on the floor, she’s laughing so hard. “Hey there, cowboy.” Her smile is wide and her teeth show.

“What’re you girls up to?”

“We’re having fun. Have you heard of it, old man?”

Joel shoots [Name] a glare that holds no venom. “Have you been drinking?” he asks Ellie.

“Earlier, I had a couple. [Name], though…”

She makes a sputtering sound: _pshh._ “Yeah, one glass. Hardly counts.”

“Well, we need to talk,” he says. His eyes lower to meet [Name]’s. “Maria came by my cabin. Guess Tommy ran somethin’ by her before he passed out and she didn’t wanna wait ’til morning.”

A hesitation, slight but there. Ellie knows that [Name], like her, is mourning the loss of their good time, reverting back to a harsh dose of reality in the form of Joel’s brusque words and stiff stance. He’s looking more and more tired with age; sometimes the mere sight of the gray in his beard is enough to send Ellie into a panic. _He’s getting old._

Hands rest on hips, shoulders lift in a defeated shrug. “Alright.”

“Ellie, get yourself to bed. You’ve got patrol in the morning.”

“What?” says Ellie, incredulous. “This is bullshit. I’m not a kid—!“

“Relax, it ain’t that. It’s just…somethin’ between me and [Name].”

That’s not fair and he knows it. He knows how well Ellie knows him. They have never talked about it because, to be frank, the mere thought mortifies Ellie, but she isn’t blind to the silent game between him and [Name]. _The girl likes staring at you when you’re not looking. Like you’re something to be solved._ Huh. Sounds familiar.

Ellie holds his gaze—_One day I’ll have the nerve to talk to you about this_—and lets her arms fall by her sides, relenting. “Fine.”

“Thank you. Have a good one,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah.”

The door swings open—but Ellie doesn’t leave. It’s pitch-black outside save for the moon and the lights from inside the hall cast enough of a glare that they won’t notice that when the door swings shut, she’s slipped off into the hallway that runs along the side of the building towards the restrooms instead of outside. She follows the hallway until she is in the back, having done a loop around until she is behind them, near where the music had been playing earlier.

Ellie doesn’t want her night to be over just yet. The romantic in her is wide awake and wants to see how the two adults in her life act when she isn’t around. Are they warmer with each other? Ellie wants to see a softer side of Joel with the woman he’s come to like.

[Name] still stands in the middle of the floor, arms crossed, and hip jutted outward. Ellie crawls behind the makeshift stage, practically on her stomach. She has a clear view of Joel as he’s mid-word, hand rubbing up and down his thickening beard: “—Tommy wants it done as soon as possible. No messes. In and out.”

“It’s never that easy,” she says with a bemused scoff. “In and out,” she echoes with a shake of her head. “I was gonna wait until morning to tell Tommy, but when I was out tonight, I came across dozens of clickers. They’re getting too close. It was just me and Connor, and we were running out of ammo by that time. We’ll have to get people out there, too.”

“I’ll run it by him tomorrow for you.”

“Why couldn’t Ellie hear about this?”

Joel is quiet for a long while. Although Ellie can’t see from here, she knows [Name] must be raising an eyebrow at him, expectant. His hands fall at his sides and slide into his jacket pockets. “Don’t want her jumpin’ to take the job.”

“It’s just a simple clean, Joel.”

“She could handle it, sure, but I don’t want her gettin’ cocky.”

[Name] mutters, “Jesus.” More loudly, she says, “Ellie is an adult. She’s smart. She knows her limits.”

Ellie’s cheeks warm. She wasn’t expecting an argument, much less one with her name being thrown around. It occurs to her then that maybe she shouldn’t be eavesdropping like this: it’s something a kid would do. She has fought this long to be an adult and here she is, crawling around on the dusty floor and listening to the big people talk about big things—

“I know.”

Those two words do more to Ellie than they would for anyone else. Joel doesn’t just _give in_. He’s stubborn and firm and he sticks by what he has convinced himself is right. Yet [Name] hardly had to say anything to get him swaying to her side. Maybe Ellie is looking too deeply into it; maybe Joel really has been considering it and has decided to let Ellie be her own person, absent of his influence. 

Except that doesn’t sound much like Joel.

A thick silence follows. [Name] wanders to her glass, left behind on the bench, and sighs. “I wish I had taken the bottle.”

This catches Joel’s attention. “How long were you two in here?”

“Not long.”

“Dancing without music?”

A lopsided smile spreads across her face. “I sang a little Rod Stewart for her.”

To Ellie’s surprise, he chuckles. “How’d she like that?”

“Oh, she loved it. A little ‘Maggie May’.”

“That’s a good one.”

[Name] grips the glass by the rim and sits it atop the table. “Sure is.” Ellie’s eyes carry to Joel and find he’s shyly watching [Name] as she tucks hair behind her ears and rests her hands back on her hips. It sends a jolt through Ellie, seeing the hardness in his eye thawing out. What’s going on in his head?

“I guess I’ll go to bed,” she says.

“Yeah, ’s gettin’ late.”

Ellie’s eyes widen. “C’mon,” she mutters, irritated, under her breath. _Do something. Loosen up. Allow yourself some semblance of joy. For once in your life, do something for yourself._

“God knows I won’t be able to sleep, but…”

_Here’s your chance. Do it, you idiot._

Ellie has to fight back a scream when Joel curtly says, “Good night.”

“You too,” she says, and then she’s headed out the door. The moonlight catches in her hair as the door swings open, and then she’s gone. The door shuts with a finality, like a gavel.

Left alone, Joel stares after where she left. Ellie almost wants to jump out and start yelling at him: _Why can’t you let yourself be happy!_ As she seriously considers it, imagining his reaction, he wanders to the table and takes a seat. With a sigh, Joel hangs his head and clenches his fists briefly. Ellie looks closely; they’re shaking.

His head lifts and he rubs a hand over his beard and stares straight ahead, unflinching. She knows him well enough to guess at the war waging in his mind at this very moment. _No matter what happens, you keep finding something worth fighting for._ Why can’t Joel take his own advice? It seems, as time goes on, Joel closes off more and more. Ellie is out there forging a path of her own while he’s wasting away, stewing in resentment and pain.

Half-turning, Joel eyes the abandoned glass. He tentatively picks it up and runs his thumb along the inside of the rim, eyes glued to the touch. Ellie recalls [Name] downing the whiskey in a quick flash, her lips around that very same edge; for however brief of a time it may have been, it’s enough for Joel. The small things seem to be all he’ll ever allow himself.


	2. spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> months later, reader is still caught in the middle of joel and ellie's disagreements.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!! i wrote this a while ago, i think the day after i first posted? i hope yall enjoy and thank u sooooooooo very much for all the kind things u said about chapter 1, hopefully this keeps u intrigued!!!

“Tommy, have you seen the girls?”

_The girls._ He doesn’t need to explain who he’s referring to; self-contained Joel only ever associates with the same handful of folks in Jackson. He isn’t good at getting along with strangers, never has been. At Sarah’s soccer games he sat alone in the bleachers, ignored the other parents’ offers of an after-game celebration, and focused only on his little girl running around the field with a ferocious drive she certainly got from him. One of his scarce qualities that are truly good.

Once the cordyceps hit, Joel only retreated further within. Turns out he had it right all along: he wasn’t built for human connection and it has saved him time and again.

“They went down by the lake. Hunting.”

Joel nods, thanks his brother. He knew that already: [Name] bid him goodbye hours ago, a gloomy Ellie in tow. Now it’s nearly noon and they’re nowhere to be found. It isn’t so uncommon for them to lose track of time, get caught in a bind—he’s just concerned that one of these days their luck will run out and he won’t be there to save them.

Iron panic grips Joel by the heart and tugs. Unfortunately it’s a feeling he has become bedfellows with. He can’t remember the last time a week has passed—hell, even a single day—without his nerves jumping to attention. It seems all he’s good for anymore is killing and worrying. But he has learned how to school his panic into an eerie calm. Focus on the little things that ground him back to the earth and keep him straight.

The heavy breathing of the horse helps steady him now. The teeth-rattling, thunderous impact; the neighing of the stead; the urgent push forward no matter what—animals have always calmed him. When he was a little boy—real little—he would beg his parents for a horse. He was too young to realize they didn’t have nearly enough money for the mount, let alone a hitch and stable. His father made some passing remark that maybe if he worked for it, he could get one. Joel had saved up the money for years, never saying a word. And when he presented it to his parents, proud beyond belief, it was still a no. Those were the kind of games his parents played. 

The lake isn’t too far on foot, so the horse brings him there within minutes. The people of Jackson make sure to hunt nearby, sometimes wandering farther out if game is sparse. [Name] has a habit of exploring and so does Ellie, so he can only guess at how far away they’ve gotten by now. But so late into the day? Something must be wrong and Joel finds he’s already tensing up. His aging bones groan against the muscle memory of impending doom; he isn’t built how he was as a young man, even a few years ago. Time is catching up to him. As disconcerting as the thought is, Joel would consider it an accomplishment if, after all he’s been through, old age is what takes him.

He jumps down from the horse at the edge of the water and scans the horizon. It isn’t the largest lake—more like a pond—but he has to take a minute to survey the area. At this point they could be anywhere, but it doesn’t hurt to check out the scene of the crime, get a lay of the land, maybe find some clues as to where they wandered off to—_if they weren’t forced there_, he can’t help thinking.

But there, in the distance, Joel spots something that allows him his first steady breath of the morning.

The next time he dismounts is a quarter of a way down the shore from where he first stopped, finding two horses grazing between the forest line. He loops his horse around a tree near them and steps through the brush and emerges on a sandy alcove.

The music of the lake is unmistakable. It brings back distant recollections of crackling bonfires and the clinking of beer bottles and the hoots of owls. The tranquility of nature, untouched, and so lovely he wants to grip it in his fists. So far away and echoed that Joel almost has to wonder if it even is a memory and not some falsity his brain is supplying. So long ago, now. 

It gently beats against the rocky shore, teasing and retreating back. Miraculously, the water is almost as blue as the sky. And in the shallow end are the girls: Ellie in her army green tank top, the burgeoning ball of her bicep sitting above the lapping water, and [Name] in a gray t-shirt, spotting Ellie as she floats atop the water.

“Even if you did sink, you are two feet from the bottom. I doubt you’ll drown.”

“I get you’re trying to make me feel better, but never say that word in front of me again. Gives me the willies.”

“Y’know, the reason the human body can float is something called the Archimedes’ law—“

“—ugh!—yawn!”

[Name] smirks, pleased to see she got under Ellie’s skin. And just then she glances up, half-panicked at the sight of an intruder, but relaxes once she recognizes Joel. She shoots him an annoyed—but, really, amused—eye roll. He isn’t sure how, but he knows they’re having the same thought: _The kid has no problem pulling a trigger, but God forbid she lay in a pool of water._ It gives him a moment’s smile.

“What’re you two up to?”

Ellie startles and her cheeks pink, ashamed she allowed herself to be snuck up on. “Scared the shit out of me, Joel!”

“Keep your eyes open,” he says. “Can’t trust [Name] to be your watch dog. She could betray you in a second.”

Ellie bristles. She’s always had a problem with authority and it seems that no matter how many years pass, no matter how close they are, that problem still extends to Joel. If anything, it seems to him that Ellie hates taking orders from him most of all. And as the stubborn man he knows he is, it bothers him. Especially because he knows what’s right.

“I could,” [Name] agrees. “Then you’d be stuck with him, and you don’t want that.” She shoots Joel a wink. As right as Joel may be about everything under the sun—he’s intuitive to a fault—[Name] knows how to work people in her favor, a gift Joel, unfortunately, has never had. She knows how to appeal to both Ellie _and_ Joel in the same breath.

Now _that_ takes talent.

“Still gettin’ lessons? I thought I taught you this stuff years ago,” says Joel.

“She wanted to learn the backstroke.”

“And the—what is it called again?”

“Front crawl.”

“When will you ever need to use a backstroke?” asks Joel.

“You never know, cowboy,” says [Name]. “One day she could be out there, fighting for her life, and to escape she’ll have no choice but to turn on her back and swim away.” Her voice is oozing sarcasm—clearly she doesn’t see the drastic importance of learning it either, but Joel knows she likes to spend time with Ellie; any excuse to hang out with the girl will suffice.

Joel can sympathize.

“Either way, it helps me get more and more comfortable with the water.”

As fun as this all is, Joel can’t help addressing the matter at hand: “You realize you were expected back hours ago, right?”

[Name] has the decency to look half-ashamed. She knows how much Joel worries—she’s always getting on him about ‘trust’ and ‘understanding’—and can guess at where his mind was wandering when they hadn’t returned.

Ellie, as usual, jumps to defense. “It only took us thirty minutes to shoot a deer. He’s fucking huge, too, so we decided it wouldn’t hurt anybody if we spent the rest of the time having fun.”

_We’re having fun. Have you heard of it, old man?_ Clearly not.

“We’ve talked about this before: things can get bad real quick, so when you take it on yourself to venture off and play games—“

“Jesus, will you calm down?” Loose pieces from Ellie’s braid cling to her forehead. There’s a steely hardness in her eye that makes her look far beyond her young age. And—fuck, Joel needs to stop seeing the little girl she _was_ and start seeing the young woman she _is_. (Worst of all, he needs to stop seeing Sarah.)

“Pulling stunts like that ain’t funny, kiddo.”

“It was hardly a stunt. We’re going for a swim! Trust me, you’ve caught me doing much worse than something this fucking stupid.”

“Don’t raise your voice with me—“

“I’ll talk to you how I want to! I’m sick of having a babysitter!”

“Ellie, you better think about—”

“Stop it. You said it yourself, Joel—you’re not my fucking dad, so stop acting like it!”

Impossibly, Ellie rises up and comes to shore faster than anyone has ever moved through water. She lets her shoulder slam into Joel—“Ellie, hold on a second”—as she walks up the steep path into the brush and where their horses graze. It isn’t seconds later that he hears the horse neighing and speed away—all before he can think to say another word.

Joel stands there, seething. Those words were a slap in the face, and she knew it. After all they’ve been through, all they’ve shared, Ellie should understand why Joel is as skittish as he is. There’s so much that can go wrong within minutes; is it so terrible of him to worry? It seems that no matter what has happened, Ellie will never get it through her head that—fuck, Joel is scared. All the fucking time. No matter how nice Jackson may be and how many of them there are, it takes one burning match for everything they have to come down. How can she be so naive as to ignore that?

(And…after all they’ve been through…why doesn’t Ellie see him as her dad? All that he’s sacrificed for her—what more does he have to do?)

“Joel?”

He swallows the frog rising in his throat. He isn’t going to do this in front of _her_ of all fucking people.

“Joel.”

“What?”

She doesn’t answer. 

He says, “I don’t wanna hear it.”

[Name] rises from the water. He can hear the droplets falling from her hair and face and everywhere else he has imagined his hands tracing. Worst of all is the way her shirt clings to her torso. He has to force his eyes away, fighting down the urge to just fall to the ground and scream until his throat bleeds raw.

“I’m sorry she said that to you,” she says, dangerously close, “but you have to let the reins slacken.”

“She needs to learn her place.”

“That isn’t fair and you know it.”

Joel keeps his mouth wired shut. What he hates most about talking with [Name] is that, more often than not, she’s right. And he doesn’t want to hear all the ways he’s fucked up right now. Much less while she’s standing there looking like…that.

“If your life was in her hands, wouldn’t you trust her to keep you alive?”

“Of course, but—she doesn’t know this world like we do. She still trusts and she still isn’t totally aware—“

“That’s…” Her voice wanders. His eyes greedily take in the sight of the water droplets clinging to her eyelashes as she stares out across the lake. “That’s so fucked up. Ellie has been through a lot. Comparing her pain to yours and saying it doesn’t match up…Jesus, Joel.”

“You know just what I mean—“

“Actually, I don’t. We’ve talked about this countless times. It—“ [Name] laughs, but it’s bitter. Angry. “It’s like I’m talking to a brick wall. You’re so sure of yourself that you can’t even stop to see things from her side.”

Joel opens his mouth to bite back—he’s sick of everyone looking at him like the bad guy—but she holds up her hands, silencing him. 

“You know what?” she says. “I’m gonna go. I need a few hours to…calm down, I guess.”

As she stalks up the slope, Joel’s mind flashes images: Ellie screaming at him moments ago; disappointment radiating in [Name]’s eye; the way that damned shirt hugs [Name] in all the ways he can’t bring himself to; Tess’s body splayed out on the floor of the capitol building; Sarah, limp, cradled in his arms; and a fourteen-year-old Ellie shoving him away in a child’s bedroom. A haze of red blurs Joel’s vision and all he can focus on is the anger he has clung to for years. The same anger that brings him to his feet every fucking morning. 

“If I ain’t even her dad, then you definitely ain’t her mom.”

The moment the words leave his mouth, he knows he’ll regret it for the rest of his days. He doesn’t have to look to know that [Name] has stopped walking and is hovering there. The rage emitting from her is so thick that Joel knows he’ll have to wade through it once she leaves and he doesn’t want to relive that disgusting pain any longer. 

He expects screaming and maybe even a punch, but she leaves without a word, never having even turned around. Joel wishes she had come back down there and slapped him across the face. It’s what he deserves. But he said the words, and he stands there, now having to linger in their ugliness.


	3. summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> after joel's explosive words, reader takes some time to herself—and a trip down memory lane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh u guys are the best!! it's been a while since i updated and i greatly appreciate the patience and space u awarded me :') this chapter took me a long time to navigate but i can finally say i'm happy with the outcome and am, frankly, happy i took this long to get it perfect. this is my first time really writing action pieces and i hope it's even vaguely intelligible??? thank u love u hope ur living ur best life <33 :)  
((also i *may* be working on something for mr higgs of death stranding fame...........))

One good thing about Wyoming: the weather. Summers aren’t too bad; they just got over a spell of rain and thunderstorms every other night, leading into a normal summer. There are times—like now—when [Name] wishes the back of her neck weren’t sticky with sweat just by _sitting_ there, but compared to the other places she’s been to through the years, Wyoming is, by far, one of the best. It’s better than being suffocated by the dangerously dry heat of the southwest or driven insane by the humidity of the northeast. This is a happy, pleasant medium.

Patrols are one of her favorite things to do nowadays. And, because she’s [Name], she broke away from the group early on and wandered off to some little corner of the world where she can sit and soak in the stillness and meditate on the state of life.

Perched atop a roof, specifically. It might not be the smartest idea—someone with a superior weapon could spot her from far away, pick her off like she’s nothing more than a fawn—but she likes the vantage point enough that she isn’t compelled to move. Plus, with this sense of peace that always seems to wash over her when she’s alone on patrols, she feels like nothing can sneak up on her. Mortal hubris, yes, but she’s made it this far, so maybe she’s getting _something_ right.

It isn’t so unusual of her to stray from the patrol group. At first it was a big problem—“If you get hurt out there, we’d have no idea where to find you”—but she had argued with Tommy that, in a way, it’s safer:

“One less person stomping through the woods means less noise.”

“I can keep an eye from afar.”

“If there’s a swarm, at least I’ll be left standing.”

All weak—and morbid—arguments, essentially supporting that it’s a good idea to split up in a horror movie, but after an hour of the back-and-forth and, knowing she could handle herself, Tommy relented. The moment she arrived in Jackson, Tommy had taken a liking to her—so much so that she’s been referred to as his second-hand. An immediate trust was established between them that doesn’t happen often for [Name]. It was what initially made her stay in Jackson despite better interests.

(Now she stays for a couple other reasons, but they’re a sore spot recently.)

She greatly prefers being alone. There’re no problems, no explanations needed. She can do as she pleases and follow her own moral code. She’s made the mistake of joining groups before and learned that you either run away before shit hits the fan or else risk getting killed or worse. She has literal scars from learning those lessons the hard way.

But Jackson has been…good. An adjustment, but one of the better ones she’s had to go through in the apocalypse. Nobody is dumb; you don’t make it this far if you’re an idiot. They’re all capable and she has no problem admitting it, but she still can’t deny that the one person she’s most comfortable with is herself. At least she knows her own intentions. 

Everyone else? Sure, they’re capable, but there’s a good chance that the people still alive after this long have made it this far only because they’re certifiably insane. There are some evil folks out there that she would really rather not get too close to. She has brawn, sure, but she isn’t so crazy to go seeking them out; she’d rather stay as far as humanly possible. (A downside of Wyoming: it isn’t far enough away from Washington.)

The house beneath and around [Name] creaks with age, but it still gives her a jolt, snapping out of the reverie. The second story window she crawled through to reach this overhang has cheap and tattered curtains that occasionally billow with the rare breeze that comes through the valley. Not even the trees bristle. The stillness should be eerie, but she finds it peaceful. They’ve picked the surrounding areas of Jackson bone-clean. Patrols—although essential—are kind of useless because of this very fact, but she’ll still go on them. An escape is what she always needs.

_You’re the only person I know that doesn’t go insane being alone. Besides me, of course._

The memory of the words send a spidery discomfort down her spine, the pit of her stomach sinking. The suddenness of them in her thoughts make her feel poisoned, like she’s rotting from the inside out. She said those words, but it’s who they were said to that leaves the bad taste in her mouth. _Jesus Christ, are we gonna do this? Now?_

Suddenly [Name] wishes for a swarm of clickers, a pack of dogs, the godforsaken WLF—something to distract from the storm brewing. Suddenly the world’s malevolence isn’t a thing of peace, but something to drown in, run away from; the reality of the world a flashing red light.

And with the silence comes demons.

+++

Tommy invited Joel and [Name] on a hunt two years ago. It wasn’t long after she arrived—a few months—and so she understood the reputation Tommy’s older brother had: petulant, private, and stubborn. Right out the gate she wasn’t a fan. There’s nothing fun or interesting about sullen men that need to get their way. The only bright side of Joel, in her eyes, was something wholly other than him: his little girl, Ellie. She couldn’t see any familial resemblance, but the two were so glued together that she must’ve been his daughter. Or something like it. (A post-apocalyptic landscaped often disproves blood being thicker than water.)

There were reportedly two bloaters nearby and, from what lookout gathered, they were only getting closer. Bloaters are tricky and although the instinct would be to bring as many people as possible, it just offers more risks: loss of more-than-necessary supplies, more lives on the line, and inexperience can very quickly turn an encounter sour. Sure, maybe they should’ve been teaching Jackson residents how to handle a bloater, but Tommy wanted them gone as quickly and smoothly as possible. 

Although she sees herself as blunt to a fault, she wasn’t about to tell Tommy that she didn’t want to work alongside his brother. She had _just_ gotten there and it wasn’t her place to put herself in the middle of…whatever that would result in. Right off the bat she knew she’d have to suck it up and go along with them. The problem would be keeping her mouth shut if Joel chose to push her buttons.

And push he did. 

“Don’t ya think it’d be better if we use less ammo?”

She was loading up her 9mm, stood beside her horse, when she heard those words over her shoulder. Although she tried to stay away, his gruff voice was recognizable enough that she knew immediately who it was.

“I have nail bombs too,” she said, keeping her back to him.

“So do I. So does Tommy. Ammo won’t help much, especially from some revolver.”

“Anything will help in the long run.”

“You realize these boys don’t go down easily, don’t ya?”

At that, she turned, fighting the simmering heat brewing. They hadn’t even _left_ and she already wanted to give him a slap to the back of the head. He stood there in a hunting jacket, shotgun slung to his back. 

“This isn’t my first rodeo,” she said. “How do you think I’ve made it this long?”

“I’m just sayin’ that if yer gonna pack heat, make it something a little…heavier.”

“And waste more of _that_ ammo?”

He bristled. “Shotgun packs more punch. Less bullets.”

“Less bullets, sure, but more valuable.”

“It matters that that damn bloater gets taken down before it makes a bigger mess than it already has.”

“I thought the ammo is what mattered.”

Joel’s face twisted. He was a good-looking, burly man—graying hair and all—but when he got mean she wanted to punch him. “Now listen—“

“There a problem?” Tommy walked up with a rein in hand, horse trailing behind, its large head shaking back and forth as it huffed. Tommy’s face was flat, probably realizing the trouble he got himself into by asking them to come along.

“Not at all,” she was quick to say, giving Joel a look: _Don’t get me kicked out of Jackson, asshole_. “Getting to know each other.”

“Not too well, hopefully,” said Tommy. “I want the bloaters to be the most dangerous thing we encounter today, that alright?”

An oppressive gray cloud hung over the three as they rode out. She avoided their equally hard stares; Joel’s burned so thoroughly from behind her all the way to the bloaters’ hideout that she hunched her shoulders against an invisible breeze, hating the feeling he gave her. It wasn’t fair that even with the world dead and gone, there were men like him trying to step on her. Always.

Lookout was right: the bloaters were certainly moving closer. The last reported sighting placed them half a mile farther than they were then. 

“Shit,” hissed Tommy under his breath. The trio hitched their horses far out and walked up to where the bloaters were congregating beneath an underpass, sticking to the shadows. They hid behind a decrepit car, watching. “It’s a good thing we came when we did.” He rested his hand on the car’s hood, tapping his fingers silently in thought. “How’re we gonna do this?” They were quiet for so long that Tommy spared them a glance and honed in on her. “Don’t worry, [Name], you can speak up.”

She’d been bouncing on her heels, still crouched, and eyeing up the bloaters like they were something to eat. The monotony of day-to-day life got to her easily and she liked using her head, drawing up plans. She almost craved the chaos. “Plant the bombs, bob and weave, take them down. Simple as that.”

“Simple as that,” echoed Joel in a low voice. “Simple, yeah? You sure you’ve dealt with bloaters? They’re a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, I deal with those often enough.”

“Joel—“ Tommy cut in before his brother could get a word in, knowing he was gearing for a fight. “Not the time or place.”

“You see what she came here with? A damn revolver.”

“You know why?”

“It don’t matter why, Tommy. She’s not thinkin’ straight and she clearly has a mouth—“

“And you don’t?”

That shut Joel up. His mouth screwed shut and he breathed out through his nose, the air hot.

Tommy continued: “[Name]’s the best shot we have. She makes the bullets count. You’ve never seen her with a bow, clearly, ‘cause if you had you wouldn’t be spouting this bullshit.”

Her neck was growing hot. She appreciated the compliment, but it was warring with the inevitability that she’d have to prove him right and the bitterness that she didn’t need to be shrouded in praise, but could’ve simply proven it herself. To be fair, Joel wasn’t giving Tommy much of a choice. He just _had_ to correct every little thing. (There’s a difference between being smart and being stubborn.)

“Let’s get on with this,” she couldn’t help snapping. She had to do something to cut through the awkward heat. “I don’t think we should jump out guns blazing. I think stealth is the way to go. Then we plug them up. What do you think?” she pointedly asked of only Tommy.

“I think yer right. But we do hafta make it count,” he said. The words seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth. Joel looked a little more pleased at hearing them. “But you know that already,” said Tommy. “I ain’t worried.”

She gave him a nod, thankful.

Between the three, she was smallest and most silent, so she offered to plant the nail bombs immediately. There was little discussion—they agreed—and she armed herself to the nines. Altogether they had a dozen: more than enough in all their eyes.

“Still, be conservative,” said Joel. “They ain’t following a pattern, but maybe find a spot they’ll both trigger one and get hit.”

She steadied her breathing. Really, she shouldn’t be enjoying the danger of this as much as she was. But there was no denying that the prospect of dying made her feel the most alive she ever had. It was always like this right before a big fight. “Hopefully,” she said, lowly, allowing that small measure of fear to have a voice.

“Hopefully,” he echoed. She could feel his stare and looked up. 

Their eyes met. The veneer dissipated and he gave her the barest of nods, so small that Tommy surely couldn’t have noticed. She wasn’t sure what had passed between them—maybe Tommy defending her had been the right idea after all—but she didn’t mind the vote of confidence. 

Six in hand, [Name] kept to a crouch and wandered out from behind the car. The churning, heavy clicks of the bloaters felt loud as thunder as she emerged into open space. The senses tuned in the closer she got, eyes blazing as she watched their every move. There was something exhilarating about the added challenge of not one but two prey to keep track of. One wrong move or guess and she was done for. The idea of the brothers having to carry what was left of her corpse back to Jackson stabbed at her like a poisoned dagger; she wouldn’t go out like that. She was starting to build a life in Jackson, and wasn’t hating it. And, stubbornly, she wanted to prove to Joel that she wasn’t useless and glib, and that handling a couple of bloaters was nothing in her books.

But as she approached, the more exposed she felt. There were few cars to hide behind if anything went awry. And once it kicked off and more clickers inevitably came running, they were fucked. They’d have to be on high alert. She almost wished there were clickers here already to take care of; they were so much easier to pick off, even if they were risky.

With the waddle someone adopts when they’re heaving an armful, she placed her first bomb at the edge of the circle they were trekking. She planted the others gradually, daring herself to go farther and farther in the middle. Having to be silent and efficient and make sure one didn’t go off while she was in the middle of planting the others was a difficult balance. She had placed the final one by the time the first went off.

That was when all hell broke loose.

+++

“Will you calm down?”

The voice startles [Name] so badly that she nearly jumps out of her skin. Her head swings about wildly as she retreats as far back against the house as she can without falling straight off. She’d been so caught up in her memory that she hadn’t been paying attention, much less able to tell where exactly the voice had come from. They could be inside, they could be right below. They could be watching her right now, lining up the shot, and she’d be none the wiser.

Suddenly, a dog barks. Off to her right, close enough that it isn’t echoing back to her. 

Like a rabbit caught in headlights, she trains her eyes on where she thinks it came. Hyper-attuned. She’s pressed against a window, too; this group could be large enough that they’ve split up and are standing within the house as well, bringing her attention to the dog so that they can come up from behind. Cornered. This isn’t the unpredictable, upper-handed chaos she feeds off of, but the paralyzing fear that any second you could be the prey.

_Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit—_

“Maybe he caught a scent,” says a second voice.

“Maybe,” ventures the first. “It’s possible that wasn’t all of them back there. Someone could’ve broken away.”

“Put up quite a fight, huh?”

_All of them._ The others. The group she came with. A group that she, once, had joked she would be the last one standing from if they were ever ambushed. It seems that day has come and she isn’t laughing anymore.

“God, tell me about it. I thought that one bitch wouldn’t go down. You see how much I plugged her with?”

They share a joyful, remember-that laugh.

She has to get off this roof. But she doesn’t want to lose sense of direction and her track on them. They’re coming closer, that much she can tell, but from where exactly she isn’t certain. It sounds like they’re on the other side of the neighboring house, walking through the grass, but again, she can’t say for sure. And what if there are others? Two men and a dog over there, but there could be a troupe of them right under her nose.

First things first: the dog has to go.

Before she can decide—stay or go inside—there: a flash of blue. A shirt. Then the man comes into full view, a leash gripped in his hand. And there’s the dog, straining against the rope with ferocity. She has no doubt it has her scent and is foaming at the mouth to track her down. It _knows_. A German Shepherd. There was a time when she had a book on dog breeds and she’d come up with names to give her future pets. She would run across the park to a dog and ask its name and if she could pet it. Now, she’s here, older, harder, and eager to pick this dog off before it can get her killed.

The second man comes into view. He’s wearing green and he’s trailing behind, a shotgun touted in his arms. His eyes vaguely wander about the area, searching, but he’s doing it lazily. Like they’re ready to head home—wherever home may be. (She could be perched on their safe house and would have no way of knowing.) The man with the leash keeps telling the dog to relax, stop, they’re going.

“I really think he’s trying to tell us something.”

“Could be. But we’re pretty far out. You think someone might really be out here?”

They’re standing beneath the eave. She can see the very tops of their heads. Suddenly, the dog starts barking—and won’t stop. 

“Someone’s here,” she hears them realize before she slips back into the window. Her foot snags on the edge of the sill and she stumbles inside, but the dog is loud enough that they must’ve not heard. Doesn’t matter: they’re onto her.

There’s a silence and she knows dogs well enough to know that he’s been let off his lead—and right to her. She can hear the scurry of the paws on the stairs and the bounding feet trailing behind, radioing backup as they do.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—_

She’s on the third story, which gives her enough time to find a room, plant herself in the doorway, and ready her bow. She draws the string back and waits, silent as ever, as the clatter of nails grows louder and louder. The dog is on the second floor, searching frantically, trying to regain the scent. 

And when it does, it barks. Seconds pass almost as fast as the arrow flies once the dog fills the entryway. It sails right past the dog’s ear and jumps on her. She can’t help the scream that lets loose as the dog clamps down on her arm, whipping its head back and forth. Distantly, a mile away, it seems, she can hear the two men bounding up the stairs. She’ll be fucked.

Blood streams down her forearm and some drops splatter on her face as the dog shakes her like a damn toy. She kicks and punches but the dog is dead weight on top of her. Pure aggression in a small body.

Eventually, her hands close around the knife strapped to her thigh and puts it to good use.

She kicks out from beneath the body and scrambles for the bow that was knocked from her grip. Her hands shake—from the burning pain in her arm or absolute fear, she can’t tell—and she has to try twice, three, four times to get the arrow notched. Perfect timing: because just then Green Shirt is there and aiming his gun. She gets him right in the throat as he’s mid-call to his buddy, choking on his own blood.

The body hits the wood floor with a heavy thud. Suddenly the pounding footsteps stop and she crawls to the corner of the room. The stinging of the bite is getting worse but there’s no time to tend to it in the middle of this standoff. 

The steps stopped somewhere on the stairs, so Blue Shirt must be right down the hallway. She tries listening for his breathing—he could be sneaking up right now—but there’s a pounding in her head drowning it out. It takes a moment to realize it’s her racing pulse. 

“Todd?”

The voice is close; on the stairs, as she thought.

She wants to call out, “He’s dead, you fucking moron”—(it sounds like something Ellie would’ve said in her position)—but stays silent. He knows she’s on this floor, but he doesn’t know exactly where and that’s the best thing she has going for her right now. 

_They called for backup._ If she waits him out for too long, he’ll have reinforcements, and there’s no fucking way she’ll be able to take on more than one rushing her if she’s cornered. She has to make a call, and she has to make it now.

There’s a bedroom by the head of the stairs. She pulls the knife from the dog. Thinking fast, she grabs an apple she had saved in her backpack and throws it as hard as she can into the bedroom. It thuds off the wall and must’ve hit something because there’s a clatter.

The footsteps continue up the stairs and once he’s standing in the doorway, looking in, she jumps up and runs full speed at him. She jumps on his back and digs the knife into his throat, stabbing repeatedly, until he’s gagging and dropping to his knees. 

Still clinging to him as he falls, her hip hits the floor first, surely bruising it. She hisses through her teeth, but is on her feet in an instant and is running back down the hallway to grab her shit: backpack and bow. She retrieves the bloodied arrow from Green Shirt, and sprints back down the stairs, their bodies abandoned as voices rise from the distance.

+++

The sound of nails sent flying past your head isn’t something you ever forget. [Name]’s first instinct—and it saved her life—was to hurl herself behind the safety of the closest car. Blindly, she could hear the roar of the bloaters and then the two of them stumbling about wildly.

Good news: the bombs were striking both.

More bombs started going off as they spun around on their heavy feet, stepping about without consideration. She kept shielded behind the car, shaking. In the distance was the unmistakable sound of alerted clickers. She wasn’t going to leave cover, but if the clickers came up she couldn’t just stay still. 

The nails dinged off the metal of the cars. She’d been counting how many had been set off. There were two more. She refused to move or even peek over the side to see which ones and how close the bloaters were to triggering them.

_I didn’t consider this._ She would never admit it, though.

Bad news: the clickers had arrived.

She saw them running up the street. They were fast as hell, and the mere sight of their bounding feet got her on her own. “Company!” was all she yelled, and she started shooting the closest bloater—which, frankly, was closer than she expected.

And once it got her location, the spore bombs started flying.

The shrieking trill of the arriving clickers combined with the wailing of the bloaters and the gunfire of all three guns and the eruption of the spore bombs planted a sporadic pounding pain in her head. If she made it out of this, she was going to have a raging migraine, that much was for certain.

Joel’s shotgun sent a running clicker flying backward. Then another, and another. Tommy was jumping about avoiding the bombs like an Olympian and burying bullets in each bloater, the clickers an afterthought. And [Name] jumped atop a car and focused on the bloaters, her biggest priority too. Each of them did their part without a single word said, moving amongst each other and passing by with little acknowledgement, so tuned in to the predators before them that they were seldom considering one another’s existence.

Again, if they made it out of this alive, they’d make a good team.

At one point she turned right in time to see a clicker approach Joel from behind, him unaware. She whistled and when she had his attention she yelled, “Duck!” Two bullets hit the clicker square in the face. Joel paid the near-death experience little attention as he said, “Take out the last of them! We’ll get the bloaters!”

Four clickers left. She moved atop a new car and fired at them. One down. The second was a little difficult, the third went easy, and again she had trouble with the fourth. But, eventually, it went down. Then she focused in on the bloaters.

They were being difficult. The mere sight of them disgusted her, and the fact they didn’t go down easily only deepened the hatred. 

Eventually, one of the bloaters collapsed with a pungent gurgle.

One left.

She was out of bullets for her revolver. That was the second one she’d gone clean through. She was grabbing at the third on her when she suddenly remembered the two nail bombs left. What happened to them? There must’ve been a malfunction. If she could get her hands on them, that should hopefully be enough…

_Hopefully._

A spore bomb went sailing right toward her. Before she could react, arms circled her waist and sent her crashing to the ground. She slammed into her hip, hands scraping and stinging against the pavement. Joel hovered over her, an overwhelming force and presence, and he stared into her face. “You good?” He was heavy and stinking of sweat.

“Tommy,” was all she said, and he got the hint. He rose up and offered a hand. Her arm nearly flew out of her socket at the force in which he pulled her up. They searched around and found a lone Tommy facing off with the bloater.

“There’s two nail bombs that never went off! Where are they!”

“Don’t know,” called Tommy as he dove out of the way of a spore bomb. 

“Gotta be around here somewhere,” said Joel, searching around as he blindly reloaded his shotgun.

“This fucker isn’t going down,” she said to him. “Distract it while I look.”

“Will do.”

She dropped to the ground and looked from beneath the car they were behind. There were so many bodies littering the street that it was hard to get a good angle, let alone close in on any of the bombs. She crawled on her hands and knees, looking, and coming up empty. The corpse of the bloater at the very center wasn’t helping any either.

Even if she couldn’t get her hands on them, the risk of one or both going off at any moment was too great. If they were standing too close—or exposed at all to the shrapnel—they were fucked. She had to get a location on them or else it would come back to bite them.

Finally, _finally_, she spotted one—right as the bloater stepped on it. Joel was still beside her, and so she grabbed his coat and pulled him down with as much might as she could manage. “Tommy, get down!” she screamed, and then the nails went flying.

She was huddled over Joel, their breath hitting each other’s faces. The closeness of another human being was vaguely intoxicating, and the fact it was Joel, of all people, felt traitorous to her own body. She pushed away from him, his missing heat already feeling like a ghost. 

“You two alive?” called Tommy. It was only then that she realized the bloater was dead. It was suddenly dead silent.

“We’re good!” she called back.

There was sweat beaded on Joel’s forehead. “Guess we’re even, huh?”

“Seems so, old man,” she said, and this time she was the one to offer a hand. With a slight smile, he took it.

+++

[Name] has to get to her horse. From there, if she had a tail, she’d lead them every which way until she’d shaken them. And then? Go back to Jackson, tell Tommy what she thinks happened—the patrol was ambushed, no survivors—and then…

Then.

First she has to make it that far. First she has to live that long.

A group of four—two men, two women—emerges in the neighborhood right as she reaches the backyard of the house she’d been in. She sidesteps and molds herself against the side of an adjacent house, watching, ready to sprint if she has to. Fortunately there’s no dog in sight, but she’s none the less wary.

“They said it was here, right?”

“House with a green roof. That’s what he said.”

“I don’t like how quiet it is. Where’s the dog?”

“Search the house. We’ll split up out here.”

The women go in the house while the two men go their separate ways, guns aimed at the ready. Her horse is a third of a mile out. She’d have to get a healthy head-start if she’s to go unnoticed. What if there’re more hidden in the treeline? She could be evading one trap just to land in another, just like when she’d been on the roof.

[Name] watches the man heading in her direction. He’s far enough away that she isn’t worried, and so she does the first thing to come to mind: notches an arrow and aims at the man investigating the other end of the neighborhood, his back to her. The one closest to her is at her peripheral, not aware of the fact that she stands yards away, readying to shoot at his partner across the way.

If she misses, he’ll alert the others and they’ll start looking harder. And then she’ll be truly screwed. This is her one shot at a clean getaway.

The arrow sails and for a sickening moment she thinks it’ll miss. But it lands true: hit square in the back, he falls forward. The grass softens the thud of his body. Right then, one of the women calls from an open window: “Todd and Mike are dead! So is the dog!”

“What the hell,” says the man. [Name] watches him spin around to alert the other man, and when he’s nowhere to be found, he calls, “Blaine?”

That’s when she starts running.

“Blaine’s missing!”

She keeps on her toes, making as little noise as possible.

“There she is!”

A woman’s voice. They can see her from their vantage point. 

[Name] keeps running. She isn’t headed directly towards where her horse waits, but she can change course when she has to. For now, she has to put as much distance between her and them as possible. And no matter what, she can’t risk them following her back to Jackson. She can’t risk them destroying her family any more than has already been done.

+++

The trio had arrived back at Jackson in one piece, albeit exhausted. A relieved Ellie came up to greet Joel and he ruffled her hair, told her that of course he was alright. She scoffed and shook off his touch, but nonetheless looked like she could finally rest easy.

Maria pulled a sweat Tommy into a big hug. “Thank God,” was all she said before they departed for their cabin—but not before Tommy could give his brother and [Name] a thumbs up and say, “You did good. Real good.”

Left alone with Joel, [Name] wasn’t sure what to say. She certainly didn’t want to make it obvious she’d warmed up to him a little bit, but she didn’t want to walk off without any parting remarks. The words came fumbling out before she could stop them: “I’m happy I saved your life. I hate owing people.” 

It made him chuckle, his head hanging. “That the only reason?”

“Yes. You’re annoying and stubborn and you don’t think of anyone other than yourself.”

Clearly not. He loved Ellie, whatever she was to him, but the rest was true. He gave a one-armed shrug: _That’s fair_, it said. “Same for you. I think ya can’t stand me ‘cause we’re a lot alike.”

“I’m not annoying or stubborn.”

“But you admit you only think of yerself?”

“Desperate times…”

A second, larger chuckle. It had a nice rumble. “I get it. Really.” In the distance, Ellie called to him. He held up a hand. “Better get going ‘fore she hunts me down.” He hesitated for a small second, and she wondered if he was going to praise her, maybe even say thank you. But he kept on going.

She scoffed. It should’ve been expected, but it still annoyed her. “You’re welcome, by the way!”

Joel didn’t even bother glancing back. “I could say the same.”

It should’ve pissed her off, should’ve gotten right under her skin and nested there like a harbored disease, but at the moment all she could think about was how warm his breath had been on her cheek.

+++

Twenty minutes later, the horse is a welcome sight. It neighs and huffs and she almost kisses it with her gratitude. Instead she jumps on and takes off through the woods. The others must’ve arrived in the area on foot because at no point did they mount their own steads or even make reference to any. And she would’ve known if they had—they wouldn’t stop yelling back and forth during the entire run.

Seated on the horse, she can finally catch her breath. She’s one of the few people on the planet that actually enjoys running, but even that had been too much. Her chest aches and burns and the pain in her arm is finally catching up to her. She’s going to have to wrap it up the instant she gets back to Jackson. 

They must’ve been WLF. They’re a couple states over, but it doesn’t matter—she knows they must’ve been. They’re the only group she’s encountered that’s smart enough to bring dogs along with them. The fact WLF is patrolling not too far out from Jackson…It isn’t a comforting thought. Of all the factions rising up, WLF is the one that scares her the most. They would have the manpower and capabilities to bring Jackson down to rubble.

Tail effectively shaken, she considers going into the city and seeing if she can find any survivors, but decides against it. _If there’s a swarm, at least I’ll be left standing._

She sticks to the forests for cover as she rides. She can’t risk drawing more attention if more of WLF happens to be out and about on the streets. She knows the way from here; it won’t be a problem.

Ten minutes of riding later, [Name] allows herself to cry. All of it comes stacking on top of each other all at once: the stress of the evasion and fight; the fear for her life; the pain of the dog bite; the knowledge that she left her patrol to die; the goddamned WLF; and worst of all—the fracturing of her family. Joel. Ellie. Just their names make her sob out like a child with a scraped knee. They’re all she has left and they’ve pushed her away. 

_If I ain’t even her dad—_

Please, no.

_—then you definitely ain’t her mom._

These past few months, those words have sent her into a spiraling rage each time she remembers them. But now, coming off the heels of almost dying, they fill her with deepening despair. Devastation. She wants to be mad _now_, distract from the pain, both internal and external—her arm is fucking killing her—but all she can think of is how sad it is that Joel even felt the need to take a bite out of her. After everything—that’s what he felt she deserved?

What’s worse is that he knew just how to get under her skin.

Up ahead, Jackson’s lights come into view. Telling from the sun, it’s well past noon. If anyone has been paying attention, they must’ve realized the patrol never came back on time and they’ll be worried. The sole survivor. It hurts like a broken bone. 

The sole survivor, and she isn’t sure what to tell them. _They’re gone, but I’m not sure how or where._ She failed.

She’ll be kicked out. Excommunicated.

But for now, she allows the warmth the sight of Jackson brings to envelope her in false hope. The first place she’s ever, truly, been able to call home, right before it’ll be ripped away from her. Right before her whole life inevitably gets flipped upside down.

(She has nothing left after this.)


	4. fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> after the patrol group is presumed dead at the hands of the wlf, ellie, joel, and reader try to mend not only themselves but their straining relationships.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok first things first: thank u all so very much for ur kudos, comments, even just taking the time of day to read this story, it means the absolute world to me!!! secondly thank u for ur patience in the past couple months as i took my time making this story something i could be proud of as opposed to rushing to get something out there. i listened to a looooot of orville peck and mac miller's new album to get thru this, arguably couldn't have if it weren't for them. but again thanks to each of u, and i hope u enjoy :')

Ellie went hunting on her own. Maybe not the smartest idea with WLF somewhere in the area, but she woke fretful and alert; there was no falling back asleep. So she stepped into her boots, slipped on a worn-out hunting jacket, and rode out to some desolate spot in the neighboring forest. The sun was only just beginning to peek out, so she had no problem sneaking up on a buck and getting it down with an arrow before it even realized what had happened. 

Now she’s sitting atop a hill, watching the blues emerging throughout the sky as the sun rises. It’s going to be a beautiful day, she can just tell. There’s a certain silence and peace that Ellie feels on these special days that lets her know that, for once, she can sit back and just _live_. Relax, chill out, lean back. _Rest._ A luck in the air that means no matter what happens today she’ll be alright. A rarity nowadays; she’ll grip it with both hands squeezed tight.

The valley below is oranges and yellows and browns of all shades. A lone breeze ruffles the leaves and branches, a gentle sound of nature passing through and up to where she sits. Coming off of summer’s heat has been a relief, although Wyoming did put on a good show. But she loves fall—the dying of everything left in the world, knowing there will come a rebirth. 

There’s a comfort in the colder months. Drawing within herself for warmth, bundling under the blankets she can scrounge up, the silence of freshly-fallen snow. It’s like the world stops and takes a breather for once. Not to say she isn’t still running around saving her own ass—but there’s a beauty in the world falling apart and building itself back together all around her. 

It’s about eight o’clock when Ellie mounts her horse and heads back to Jackson, buck strapped to the horse’s back. She goes at a leisurely pace, a little intimidated to go back within the gates where the two people she loves most are as far gone as they could possibly be from her. But no, this will be a beautiful day; she’ll make sure of it.

The first face she sees is Orville, on high-alert. He’s guarding the front gate, a pair of binoculars by his side. The closer she gets she sees two more faces—Mac and Ashley—are also keeping watch. The community has been on constant patrol since it was discovered WLF was in the area. Tommy’s orders. 

“Ellie, what the hell?” shouts down Orville from his perch.

“I brought back food. Don’t pick a fight or you won’t get any.”

“Isn’t that a little risky?” asks Ashley. “Being on your own?”

“It’s what I do best. Now will you open the damn gate?”

Mac is the one that hops down and opens it for her. Jackson is bustling already, everyone heading to tend to their respective duties or visiting friends and family. Ellie leads the horse by its reins towards the butcher. After a quick exchange—“Appreciate it, Ellie”—she ties the horse up at the stable and heads over to the one cabin she knows won’t be empty.

Joel opens the door almost immediately after the knock. She can see in his eye that he’s been awake for hours, just like her, but he probably stayed inside and stewed, maybe pouted with crossed arms. That’s how she always pictures him when he’s alone: a petulant child. There’s no way she isn’t _not_ wrong. 

“Picked up a buck,” she announces. “I’ve been back five minutes and I’m already getting stir-crazy. Does Tommy have any assignments for today?”

“This one you can’t go on.”

Ellie’s eyebrows knit into what will soon become a scowl. “Why not?”

“Take it up with Tommy. Just me ’n him on this one.”

She keeps her mouth screwed shut. Normally this is the part when she picks a fight, accuses him of coddling her, but she’s learned to stay quiet when this happens. Not after…well, the last time was pretty damn bad. Last thing she needs right now is a repeat. “Well, can I at least know why?”

She shouldn’t be and isn’t so surprised when Joel offers a curt, “No.”

The only reason she allows her eyes to roll is because Joel’s back is to her. “Alright, fine. Is there anything else you can think of for me to do?”

He shoulders his pack. “Ask Tommy.” Then he brushes past her, avoiding eye contact, and heads out the door, leaving her in the cabin as if it isn’t his own.

This is how he’s been since [Name] came back with that awful fucking bite on her arm: solitary. And this is _Joel_ she’s talking about—he’s always been isolated, silent, but this is so different in a way Ellie wouldn’t be able to articulate to just anyone. The only people who would understand would be Tommy and [Name], and the latter isn’t someone Ellie can so easily consult lately. When she isn’t shut up in her cabin listening to music or out patrolling alone, she’s just as sullen as Joel. But Ellie must admit that [Name]’s worst day’s pleasantness is Joel on his best day. 

She hasn’t been giving Ellie the cold shoulder so much as she’s trying to navigate the aftermath of what happened, something Ellie isn’t fully certain about. Tommy and Joel shared snippets: [Name] ventured off, WLF attacked the patrol group, and [Name] was last man standing and didn’t realize until it was too late. Ellie can only begin to imagine the guilt, but they’ve all been through shit. She doesn’t want to come off as insensitive—because she understands, she really, truly does—but [Name] is the best of them; she should be back on her feet again. But something about this time is different. Heavier.

Ellie needs to piece her life together again.

+++

_Two WLF folk in the area. Looking for _us. That was all Tommy said when he popped his head in Joel’s cabin before leaving. Joel didn’t need further information: He started out of bed the second the door shut behind his brother. He had been laying there for hours, unable to fall back asleep, pondering life. It wasn’t long after that that Ellie came snooping around, but he didn’t want her involved. Joel got Tommy’s message loud and clear: _Just us. No one else._

Even living in Jackson, there hasn’t been a lot of _us_ between him and Tommy. There’s still a distance they can’t breach and Tommy still eyes up Joel warily when he’s out in the field, but Joel accepted long ago that some things can’t be fixed—especially when he’s the one going around breaking them in the first place. He shouldn’t expect relationships to be wrapped up in a neat little bow when he has something to do with it. Everything he touches shatters.

As with everyone in Joel’s life, the only reason Tommy gives him the time of day is because of Ellie. She’s the bridge between Joel and the real world. If it weren’t for her…Jesus, he might’ve been the worst one out there: angry and vengeful. He’s been that man before and he knows he will be again, but age is catching up to him. The only thing stopping him from ‘retiring’ is stubbornness and, admittedly, megalomania; _Only I can handle this_, he’s found himself thinking often for the past three decades. (Who’s he kidding? Even when the world was right, he was still finding ways to assert himself.)

Joel makes his way to Tommy’s cabin, but finds it empty of his brother—save for Maria. She’s seated at the table, reading, feet kicked up on the chair beside her. A record player whirs in the corner, some country twang from when Joel was a kid. “Where’s Tommy?” he asks.

She doesn’t even stir at the sound of his gruff voice nor take her eyes off the page of her book. “Gettin’ somethin’ done. He’ll be back any minute. Take a seat.”

A few questions come to mind, but Joel decides to keep his mouth shut and follow orders; her tone doesn’t allow any room for talking back. So he sits himself in the chair her feet had just been propped on and hovers in the silence of their cabin as she turns a page. 

It isn’t _any minute_ that Tommy returns—it takes nearly twenty. And he isn’t alone. 

Joel’s hands are clasped between his spread knees, head hanging, eyeing the floor, when the door opens up. Immediately he’s moving to get up—he hates sitting around and wants to get this done as soon as possible—but stops right as he’s mid-stand, hand pausing on his stubble, and he catches sight of what—or, more accurately, who—Tommy had been getting done. 

[Name] stands in the doorway, hair up in a ponytail and bags under her eyes, but nonetheless looking wide awake, a sniper strapped to her back. He’s seen her out and about every so often, but this is the first honest look Joel has gotten of her since the incident with the missing patrol. She looks haunted. 

“What’s goin’ on?” he says; to say he’s dumbfounded would be a gross understatement. 

Tommy, who had immediately rushed in to gather his things, gives a halfhearted, “She's taggin’ along,” as if they’re just going for a run to the liquor store. As if this isn’t the equivalent of hitting Joel with electricity.

“Why?”

[Name] scoffs, arms crossed. 

To Tommy, he adds, “You said they only wanted us.”

“I didn’t say that—“

“It was implied. ‘Looking for us.’”

Tommy starts: “That was so you wouldn’t bring Ellie along. This is [Name]’s fight, too, and—“

But Joel ignores his brother completely. He’s only had eyes for her since she walked in. “Are you even up for somethin’ like this? You haven’t talked to anyone for weeks. Me, fine, but Tommy? Ellie? Now you wanna start stickin’ your—”

“Joel,” Tommy and Marie say as one, their tones sharp as a knife.

[Name] raises a hand to them: _This is my battle. I can handle it._ There’s a heavy pause before she speaks, Joel waiting in anticipation. (He can’t believe how much he’s missed her mere presence in a room. Jesus Christ.) 

“I’ve been waiting for this since that day. I’m taking the chance.”

It seems for months he’s been holding his breath, waiting for the next moment they’re face to face. After she came back with that bite and that story (which Joel had to pry out of Tommy, for fuck’s sake), he’s been gearing up to speak with her, console her—_anything_ that would be considered very un-Joel-like, just to bring her back to Earth. He’d been there before: grieving, blaming. He didn’t want her to be alone, especially after all he’d done. And he wanted to talk about what had happened at the lake; it still kept him up at night: the horror of it all, his doing.

His voice softened uncharacteristically: “[Name]...”

“We gotta head out right now,” says Tommy. “All of this can be put on hold in the meantime. You got a concealed weapon on you, Joel? We don’t want ‘em thinkin’ we’re showin’ up for a gunfight.”

“Do they know I’m coming?”

“No,” Tommy says to her, “and let’s keep it that way. They just wanna talk to me ‘n Joel. C’mon, let’s go. E’rybody ready?” 

The three of them head out the door with a bid of goodbye from Marie. [Name] walks far ahead of them to the stables, looking a little too ready for a fight. Joel’s been there before: Gunning for chaos, temper rising, putting yourself in the crosshairs just for the hell of it. He almost wants to call out for her to take a breath, get out of her head, but truthfully he doesn’t have a place anymore to be saying those things to her. Not after what he did.

Tommy releases the reins of his horse and leads it out of the stables. “You’ll be lookout, [Name]. Never take your eyes off of us. They’re gonna have their own, so make sure they don’t spot you first. And Joel—Joel? Joel? You listenin’?”

“Hm? Yeah, yeah—”

“I want to talk to them,” she cuts in. “Why can’t I go with you and Joel be lookout?”

“Them not knowin’ you’ll be there is our best bet for makin’ it out alive. You’re the best shot anyways. And how do I know you won’t be pickin’ fights with ‘em? You’ve got the most ridin’ on this.”

[Name] has her head down, an almost dreamy look in her eyes as she talks, mostly to herself. “So you don’t trust me to keep my cool? Think I’ll make a dumb move and risk more people getting killed?”

“That ain’t what I’m gettin’ at, and you damn well know it.”

When her stare raises, it’s hard and perturbed. She’s aged a decade in such a short amount of time. Joel can only guess at what it has been like for her, living with what happened. He knows how it feels to wish you were the one that was dead.

Tommy fills them in as they ride out, [Name] on the back of his little brother’s horse: Carlos was making his early-morning rounds in the forests when two members of WLF approached him and, being unusually kind, asked him if they could speak with the leaders of his group, giving a designated time and place. Carlos came back and told Tommy. “We gonna see what they want, ‘n if things go south, [Name], you know the signal,” he says. 

Joel doesn’t like it. The other two aren’t stupid; they must be as alarmed as him, but they three hide it behind steely faces. The kindness of the WLF, their abrupt call for a meeting, whatever they could possibly want to speak about—none of it sounds right. There’s no denying this’ll end badly. He just hopes he makes it through to at least apologize to [Name], even if she won’t accept it.

The three stop at Tommy’s signal. “[Name], split off here. There’s a vantage point beyond that big ass tree. There you’ll find somewhere to lay. They won’t see you from up there, trust me, but still, lay low. We can’t risk anyone bein’ stupid at a time like this. Joel, let’s keep on goin’, see what the hell they want.” He snorts a laugh, the humor missing from it. “Maybe we’re early.”

+++

[Name] hates everything about this plan. Nothing good can come from it, but she wants to see this out. She needs to see their faces again—because she _knows_, deep down in her core, that she’s going to recognize whoever shows up. It has to be the man, or one or both of the two women from that day, wanting to seek vengeance for what she did. _Todd and Mike are dead!_ Those were their friends, maybe even family. They’ll want revenge.

She knows because she’s been that person before and is now: so narrow-minded, needing to release all of the anger inside until you’re drained of not just it, but everything in you. Truth is, none of it works; you’re still left hollow and in pain, but she needs to kill them. Even if Tommy doesn’t give the signal, she needs to take them down. She hates that she shares something in common with those people: retribution. She doesn’t care if it doesn’t help matters—as long as it doesn’t make things worse and they don’t have to plague the planet with their existence anymore. Any group that finds pleasure in going around killing folks is diseased; they’re worse than the Infected.

The hill is steep. She tredges up it, the ache in her calves familiar and comforting. The ‘big ass tree’ is indeed big and once she passes it, the land opens up. It’s desolate, never-ending. There isn’t any place to run for cover. If the other side starts opening fire, it’s entirely on her to protect those damn brothers. She hates that even while holding a grudge she has to keep their asses alive. _Stupid fucking Miller boys_—not men, but _boys_.

She lays in the dirt, propping and setting up the sniper. She isn’t as well-acquainted with these, but she’s used them before and is good enough to get a hang of it. Not to mention she’s angry. That’s as good a reason as any to be a perfect shot. She never misses.

Somewhere, they’re out there. They won’t sneak up on her again; her eyes flick every which way, trying, impossibly, to cover every inch of their vast setting to track any movement, sound, anything. The fact there are only three of them, and God knows how many of them gathering up out there for this meeting alone leaves her a little shaken, truthfully, but they’re already here and she isn’t sure she’d be able to trust anyone else with the job. It has to be her. She’s just happy Tommy came to her first.

Tommy and Joel are first there. They stand side by side, looking so unlike each other while sharing such familial resemblance in the way they hold themselves: strong, capable. Tommy’s strength lies in his heart, his forthrightness and leadership. And he’s a damn good leader, she can say that confidently. Three decades deep into the apocalypse, it’s hard to inspire hope, but Tommy finds a way every time. Not many people could be in his position.

And Joel...She wants to sit down with a psychologist and talk for hours about him. He’s all head and everything locked in there is brewing and storming. There’s always something dragging him down. A part of her wonders if Joel worries on purpose; that, for some reason, he’s unable to live if there isn’t something to panic over. She’s never met someone so anxiously still, so poised in their panic. A jaguar crouched, eyeing up its prey, readying itself for the pounce and attack—those precious few seconds are Joel’s entire state of being. She has her temper, but she can’t imagine living like that every minute of every day; doesn’t it ever get exhausting? Doesn’t he ever want to exhale?

Even the line of his shoulders are hard. His back is to her, head bowed as Tommy mutters, and the sun catches the grays in his hair. A hulking, intimidating man that, for the past several weeks, has been sitting in her thoughts quite often—more than she’d care to admit. Him and Ellie—that’s all she has. She hid away, stewing, and thought most often of them. They were outside her door all that time, but she couldn’t face them. Not when she’s like this. She’s the headstrong, capable one that sets everyone on a straight line when they dare to step off. How can she be that person when the vitality has been seeped from her?

Today likely won’t help any of that, she knows it, but maybe it can trick her into moving forward. All she needs is a shove.

+++

“You good?”

“Hmph.”

“That don’t inspire much confidence.”

Joel shoots a glare. “‘m good.”

Looking straight ahead, arms behind his back, Tommy says, “I just don’t want you lettin’ emotions take over like they have so many times before. I get it’s personal—with [Name] and all—”

“I ain’t havin’ this discussion with you. ‘Specially right now.”

“I’m just sayin’—”

“I know what yer sayin’, and I don’t wanna hear it. Let’s just...get this over with.”

Tommy’s mouth presses into a thin line. “Fine.”

The truth is, Joel is mad—really fucking infuriated. There’s so much at stake, and so much at play. He hates that Jackson is in jeopardy because of these assholes; he hates that they might all lose their home and even more of their ranks; he hates that Ellie is still going through her terrible teens and won’t listen to a damn word he says; he hates that [Name] got hurt in the process; and worst of all, he hates himself for being the worst person left in the world.

Suddenly, there they are, coming from the treeline: a man and a woman. The man has scraggly blond hair down to his shoulders, walks like he has all the time in the world. The woman is taller than him, lanky, and has a look of childlike petulance. She must be around thirty, but there is a disconcerting youthfulness in her face. 

Tommy shifts his weight from foot to foot as they wait. He knows his brother well enough: _Let me do the talking,_ he’s thinking. Joel is perfectly fine with that. He isn’t much of a people person anyways.

“Howdy, folks,” calls out the man when he’s within earshot. His voice is calm as a river. “I’m glad you took our invitation.”

“Hello there,” says Tommy. “My name is Tommy, this is Joel. And you’re…”

“We don’t have to get into that.” His hand raises, stopping the greetings. “Nice to meet you, Tommy. Joel. I’ve heard a lot about you two recently. A whole lot. You two brothers, right?”

“Yeah, we are.”

“That’s a rarity nowadays. People tend to call their group family. Not a whole lotta bloodline left—for anyone. Good for y’all. It’s even more incredible you get along. Real, real good.” He smiles creepishly. “Well, let’s get down to business, shall we?”

Tommy nods. “Sure thing. What was the meeting for?”

“Well, we’ve been hearing a lot about you and your place lately. Jackson, it’s called, right?”

Tommy bristles at the mere mention of Jackson. That’s _his_ home, and anything that even smells like a threat towards it hits hard. “Yeah, it is.”

“You don’t hafta worry there, friend, I’m not interested in the place. For now, at least. No, right now, I’m a little more concerned about one of your citizens. I don’t know her name and I don’t _really_ know her face, but I know she killed three of my men and one of our canines. That doesn’t sound very...hospitable to me, now, does it?”

“And the eleven of our folks you murdered?” cuts in Joel, unable to hold his tongue with this smug bastard running his mouth in front of him. “Whatta ‘bout them?”

The man guffaws, humored. “_Murdered_? Who says we did anything to any of your men?”

“They sure as hell didn’t disappear all on their own,” says Joel.

Tommy touches a hand to Joel’s forearm: _Cool it._

“So you think we murdered them? In cold blood?”

“Sounds ‘bout right.”

“With no bodies? How can you make any accusations when there’s no proof?”

_Fuck knows what you did with their corpses, you sick fuck,_ Joel has to refrain from spitting out. Tommy is the one to speak: “We’ve heard rumors circlin’ that don’t paint your folks in the best light. You and your men almost killed the woman you was just talkin’ ‘bout, so it ain’t such a leap to guess that our eleven didn’t vanish voluntarily.”

“We don’t kill unless we have a reason to,” says the woman for the first time. Her voice is mousy, but Joel doesn’t trust it for a damn second.

“Neither do we. And from what I’ve heard of what happened that day, she had a damn good reason to fight back.”

“All of this is just a...guessing game,” says the man, spreading his hands. “We can go back and forth all we want, but there’s no telling what took place.” _Except for the dead look in [Name]’s eye. That didn’t just happen from nothing._ “The true reason we wanted to talk was...well, we want her.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“We want her punished for what she did. Her life taken, so that the rest of Jackson can continue to stand.”

It isn’t red that clouds Joel’s vision, but glittering spots that threaten to collapse him to his knees. He’s smacked speechless, unable to even fight back against this absolute horseshit. Even Tommy pauses, the two WLF members staring at them with a dead cultish gaze, the two Miller men struck down by the atrocity of the situation. He can only imagine the war waging in Tommy’s head; for Joel, the decision is easy.

“You expect us to throw one of our own to the wolves for defending herself against those very wolves?” asks Tommy once he returns to reality.

“Again, this is all conjecture. No matter what, lives were taken that day that we are, sadly, still recovering from. We’ve mourned, we’ve discussed, and we’ve decided that the only solution is her execution.”

“Now, listen here—don’t you forget, we’re mournin’ too. You can make your claims, but the reality is that those eleven are gone. We might as well ask for your people there that day to be punished, too.”

“Except we have eyewitness accounts of her being there and murdering those men. Do you?”

It’s a slap in the face and it lands hard like one. Knowing his brother, Tommy puts an arm out before Joel can jump on them. The woman eyes Joel with zero emotion; the two of them are disturbingly robotic. They don’t give a damn that their men are dead, they just want to see more blood spilled. God knows what they would do with [Name] if they got their hands on her.

Joel will die making sure that never happens.

“We ain’t givin’ her to you. There’s no convincin’ us of it. No way,” says Tommy. “She’s family.”

“And what about the rest of Jackson? Are you saying they aren’t family?”

Tommy allows a crack in the foundation. He approaches the man, a little too close for comfort, and looks him straight in the eye. “What I’m sayin’...is that you ain’t gettin’ her, and you ain’t gettin’ our home. Yer gettin’ _nothin’_.”

“That’s a real shame. Because we’re not leaving until we have one or the other. And, if we have to, we’ll have both.”

They’re exposed in this field. If shit hits the fan, they’ll be surrounded in seconds. He has no doubt there are dozens of them watching all of this, but he’s far past the point of caring, and he knows Tommy must be too. They have to stay alive, protect Jackson from a potential invasion, but all Joel wants right now is to destroy these people, no matter what. Behind his back, he makes an L shape with his thumb and index finger. Their signal.

Joel’s shoulders tighten, waiting to spring to action and the inevitable loudness of the shot—but it never comes. _C’mon, [Name]._

“I don’t take threats very lightly, fella,” says Tommy.

“That’s smart of you. Because this isn’t something to joke about. I mean every word of it. Someday, we will come, and you’ll finally understand who we can become.”

_C’mon, [Name], I don’t care how much you may hate me—take the damn shot. Why ain’t she—_

“Stop protecting me, Tommy.” She’s unarmed, hands raised, as she walks up to their quartet. For the second time in minutes, Joel thinks he’s about to pass out. She stares at the two WLF members, hatred burning plainly. The couple look ready to kill her right there. “They want me, they can have me.”

“That’s very galiant of you,” says the man. “It’s lovely to see you again, Miss…?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

He smirks. “Clever. And funny. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see this side of you on that fateful day. How are you faring? You ran for quite some time.”

“I’m wonderful, darling. How’s Blaine?”

The woman makes to lunge, and the man restrains her with a viperlike quickness. “Now, now, let’s not make rash decisions. I must say, I truly do appreciate you giving yourself up in such a way. Very, very brave. It seems you’re destined to always be a martyr.”

“Catholicism fascinates me,” she says with a polite smile. “I romanticize a lot.”

“I’m sure you do. Well, men, I have what I came for. Come along, Miss. We’ll bring you back to our home—”

“Yer not goin’ anywhere,” says Tommy.

“Stop.” [Name] pushes between the two of them, Joel reaching out to grab at her wrist, shirt, hair—_anything_—but catching air. She’s almost nose to nose with the man, the woman seething in anger at his side. She says something so faintly that Joel can’t hear, but whatever it was, the two of them didn’t like it. 

Right as the woman sneers and reaches out to do _something_, [Name] rolls up her sleeve, slips out a knife, and slits the woman’s throat, ear to ear. Somewhere in the trees, there’s a horrified scream. The woman collapses, writhing, and tries grabbing at [Name]’s feet. She kicks her straight in the face, a nose surely being broken. 

Shots start firing immediately.

Joel has his gun in hand and delivers a bullet right between the man’s eyes. His knees buckle and he falls, blond hair covering the damage in his head. Then Joel is grabbing [Name]’s hand and running as fast as he can back where they came, zigzagging and trying to avoid what seems to be hundreds of bullets flying past them. Somewhere beside him he hears Tommy shout in pain, but his little brother doesn’t fall, so he must be well enough to keep going. Joel never stops.

They make it back to the horses. Right as Joel is helping [Name] mount the stead, a bullet grazes his calf. He moves with more urgency, swinging his leg around and getting the horse to move. The three of them take off, bullets still whizzing.

+++

It’s after noon by the time they get back. Ellie didn’t think much of Tommy and Joel going on a secretive adventure, the moment she caught wind that [Name] had been brought along, she knew it must’ve been a big fucking deal. And then she got a stabbing pain in her lower leg and knew that something went wrong. She couldn’t say why, but she just _knew_.

There’s blood spattered on [Name]’s face, that’s the first thing Ellie notices. She doesn’t care; the moment she’s off the horse, Ellie is running full force at her and squeezing her in a hug. People are watching, but she still doesn’t give a shit, even when she starts to cry. [Name]’s full weight lands on Ellie, relaxing into her, and the two of them bask in each other’s wordless forgiveness for the past several weeks of near-silence.

Joel helps a sweat-soaked Tommy off his horse. Marie runs up, calm and concerned. “Where was he hit?” she asks, eyes wide.

“Just my side,” says Tommy. “Straight through.”

“He’ll be fine, he just needs to get sewn up ‘n stop bleedin’ so damn much,” says Joel.

“Jesus,” mutters Marie. “Fuck. Lemme help.”

“I’m sorry, Ellie,” says [Name]. She leans back to look in the young girl’s face, and takes her face in her hands. “You’re my girl. I should’ve let you in.”

“Don’t. I know,” says Ellie. She wipes a spot of blood from [Name]’s cheek. The two of them are weeping like children. 

[Name]’s chin crumbles, and it just about shatters Ellie’s heart. “I feel like such a fuck-up.”

Ellie isn’t usually the one comforting. She feels like the mother consoling a child. The truth is that her love for [Name] goes far beyond designation. Ellie likes to avoid labelling just so she doesn’t get hurt, but she knows who the real mother here is. “If you’re a fuck-up, then I don’t even want to know what I am.”

She laughs, surprising herself. She buries Ellie in another hug.

Eventually, they walk hand in hand to Tommy’s cabin. A medic is tending to his wound. “It’s a miracle you aren’t in worse shape,” he’s in the middle of saying when the two walk inside. The medic looks around at the trio. “Any of you, really. Sounds like pure Hell.”

“Dozens of them. Shooting at us in an empty field,” [Name] explains to Ellie in a whisper.

“Jesus Christ.” Her eyes meet Joel’s. “How’re you all alive?”

“Don’t jinx it,” says [Name] with a watery smile.

+++

Joel gets back from Tommy’s cabin late in the night, the moon high in the sky. He’s exhausted in every sense of the word; his house is beckoning him. The graze on his leg stings, but he hadn’t even mentioned it to the others. It’s nothing compared to Tommy; it’ll heal within a week or so. He’s just glad they’re all still alive...for now.

_I don’t know what to do. I’m lost._ Those words coming from Tommy’s mouth had startled Joel. His brother always knew the next step, what course of action to take, how to protect everyone. But this time they were cornered and helpless. How could they possibly survive a massive attack from a group of psychopaths that easily outnumber them? They couldn’t just drop everything and relocate. That would take months of time and preparation. It’s the inherent downside to rooting themselves somewhere unmalleable. 

It’s a problem—a big, big problem. But for now, he needs to sit, rest, think. 

There comes a knock on the door right as he seats himself at the edge of the couch. With a sigh, hands on his knees, he stands back up and wanders to the door. He’s expecting Ellie to burst in once it opens, talking a mile a minute, but another familiar face lays on the other side. It stops him in his tracks.

“Hey there.”

“Hi,” says [Name], looking lost and dangerous. She only cleaned the blood from her face recently, and there are some parts on her face still stained. It adds to the hostile glint in her eye. “Can I come in?”

Joel can’t step aside fast enough. He’s too timorous to speak, so he silently gestures for her to step inside. When she does, the cabin feels smaller. Every time she’s in the room with him, Joel can’t help feeling suffocated; her presence does a lot for him. 

She sits in a chair, legs spread and hands clasped. “Long night.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a pregnant pause where Joel stares at her bowed head and she stares at the floor. Maybe he should be the one to break the silence, but there’s too much for him to say; he isn’t quite sure where to start.

Fortunately, she does: “I’m sorry if I...started shit today. I mean, I did, but I just mean that I didn’t intend to make it worse. Last thing I need is to get more folks from Jackson killed.”

A lot hits Joel at once: anger that she’s apologizing to him for _anything_; the urge to reassure her that this isn’t all on her shoulders; the knowledge that the missing patrol did happen on her watch and that, technically, she did have something to do with it; and the need to spit out the fact that, despite all of this, it’s him who’s always in the wrong. She can be stubborn and too-tough, but at least she makes sense. Him? He’s an amalgamation of rage and refractory and everything hard and jagged. 

“‘S fine,” is what he settles with, and he hates himself for it. It’s a cop-out; he shouldn’t be surprised at this point. Remembering himself, he adds, “You ain’t the villain here. Ain’t nobody lookin’ at you like ya killed those folks. It was them.”

“It’s hard to convince myself of that,” she says, “when I can’t even look in a mirror without feeling so...”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry I pushed Ellie away.”

Joel understands. This isn’t about them, truly. It always comes back to Ellie, even for him. Truthfully, after their argument, he didn’t expect [Name] to come running to him for reassurance. He expected the cold-shoulder. It was her silence with Ellie that astonished him, and she knows it. It’s why she doesn’t apologize to him. And, anyways, he knows she still doesn’t forgive him for it.

“I’ve been there,” he says.

“I already talked to her,” she says. “She...she forgives me. That’s all I really needed. Lifted _some_ kinda weight, at least.” She pauses. “Still can’t live with myself, but baby steps, right?”

“How’ve you been?”

Not well, obviously, but they know each other well enough to know what he means by it.

[Name] leans back in the chair, arms crossed tight. She shrugs. “Going on. Surviving. It’s the least I can do, but I’m doing it, y’know? Some mornings I can’t even—” She stops herself, cutting short. Some things are still too touchy to share with him. It hurts, but it’s better than nothing. At least she’s in the same room as him.

“Yeah.”

“I came here to yell at you, but Joel, I’m...I’m so exhausted. The moment you opened the door I forgot my monologue.”

“Well, there’s...a lot to go over—”

“You said I wasn’t her mother.”

It’s like time has frozen over. There’s a choke in her voice that makes him physically _ache_, it hurts so damn bad to hear her broken up like that, and to know that he’s the one to put all that hurt there. He wants to be tossed underground, let the dirt replace his air and let him choke on it; he wants to go back to the meeting with the WLF and get shot somewhere worse; he wants her to get up and claw open his face. He wants pain other than this.

But that’s too easy of an out. It’s been months. Finally, it’s here; his time to drop on his knees and admit everything within him that has been burning to get out. 

“I was so, so wrong,” he says, barely above a whisper.

“But you said it. Why the hell did you say it?”

“‘Cause...fuck, [Name], ‘cause I knew it would hurt. I was pissed off and you were right there and I needed to throw a dart and make it land. I’m an asshole, you know I know it, but even I didn’t expect that from me, ‘cause you ‘n Ellie are—” _You’re everything._

There are tears in her eyes, but she’s otherwise composed. He envies her strength. “Not a day goes by that those words don’t haunt me. You hurt me, Joel. Ripped something out of me and threw it away.”

“There ain’t enough words to begin to—”

“I know.”

Joel eyes her, weary. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Joel falls back onto the edge of the bed, taking a heavy seat. Months of anticipation and planning, but just like her, he’s forgotten everything he wanted to say. But it didn’t even matter—none of it. Just like that, he’s forgiven. Should it have been so easy?

But just looking in her face, he sees that it was never easy for her. Part of that haunting in her eyes was his doing. She hasn’t just sat in her cabin stewing over the missing patrol—he’s been part of it.

A sniffle comes from her corner of the room. “Do you wanna know the first thing I thought of when I was riding back to Jackson that day? It was the fact that when I got back, I wouldn’t have you or Ellie to go to. All the pain from that day, all the guilt and fear and sadness—I couldn’t go to you. I couldn’t let you—I just needed a fucking hug, but I felt that even that was gone. My family—gone. Everything. Because you and Ellie? You’re all I have left. And you took that away from me.”

“It keeps me up at night, what I did. Why I thought you were someone needin’ to get eaten up, I’ll never know. I did it, there ain’t no goin’ back, but if I could I would and I would make it all so different, [Name].”

And Joel does something he usually never would: he rises from the bed and crosses the room to take a knee before her. Their eyes touch, and Joel feels alive—well and truly alive and awake for the first time in a long fucking time. And he takes her hands, touches her cheek. She’s warm and her face is red with the sudden attention. And he leans in—

She slaps his hands away and rises from the chair, tears slipping down her face. His gut plummets, knowing there was some kind of test and he’s just failed terribly. “[Name]—”

“Where was all this the past couple years? You think you can kiss it away? That isn’t the Joel I’ve gotten to know.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t what, Joel? I mean—Jesus Christ, I’ve wanted you for years. Even if for a small, short-lived fuck to get the—the—the anger and the pain out of me, even if just for a night—but fuck, I’ve tried not to but some nights I’m really head over heels for you. It’s fucking _embarrassing_. You’re not the type of man to just fall for, I’m sure you know that. But now? Now I’m fucking angry with you and you made me feel so alone and you want to kiss it better? I mean—the irony is so fucking crazy that all I can do is laugh.”

Shame drapes over him like a heavy cloth. He knows she’s right, feels terrible for being such a piece of shit, but—“That’s not why I was doin’ it. It’s ‘cause I’m sick ‘n tired of—bein’ an asshole! You ‘n Ellie are the only people ‘ve ever met that I actually give a damn about, but I’m a stubborn prick that can’t see past the bullshit ‘n I—fuck, [Name], I’m tryin’ to open up!”

“You’re doing a fine job, Joel. Jesus, I mean, what about that night in the mess hall, when I was dancing with Ellie? I wanted _so badly_ for you to invite yourself back to my cabin, make some move. I waited around like an _idiot_ for you, but—nothing! And it’s not like I can explain this because then if I do you will, somehow, retreat even further back. There’s no winning!”

“We’re family. You coulda told me anythin’.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.”

“It ain’t a lie—”

“Don’t tell me that I could’ve gone up to you and—”

“You could’ve said anythin’, [Name], and I woulda taken it as scripture.”

“I couldn’t have told you I loved you!” She spits it out so hard that her face is red and tears keep tracking down her cheeks. The muscles in her neck are straining. “No fucking way! Don’t pretend. You would’ve taken Ellie—the purest, most beautiful thing in my _life_—and you would’ve gotten the hell out of here. Because that’s who you are, Joel! You think it’s stronger to hide and sneak around in the shadows when it _ISN’T_!” She jabs a finger at him through the air. It’s nowhere near him, but it feels like a punch. “You’re a fucking coward!”

Joel’s fist hits the table. “Fuckin’ hell—I know I am!”

Stillness hovers, thick as fog and heavy as cigarette smoke. She’s panting, the words having tumbled so hard and fast out of her that it’s like she’d stopped breathing for the past minute. Her hands cover her face and she collapses back against the wall, fighting down sobs as Joel tries to put himself back inside his own body.

Joel turns his back on her, hand scrubbing over his burgeoning beard. The words touch him softly: “I wish I hated you.”

When he turns, he finds her with her hands folded beneath her chin and she’s staring at him, hard. Tears cling to her eyelashes. Awfully, she looks beautiful. “It would make all of this so much easier,” she says. “I would take Ellie and run as far as we could fucking go. But I have you, and Tommy, and Marie, and everyone else in Jackson that I have yet to let down. Joel, I push people away too. Fuck, the reason the patrol went missing is because I wanted to be alone. But with you—I always wanted to be there, you just never let me.”

“I ‘spose I…” His voice drifts off.

“What?”

“I...I never let you in ‘cause it’s just someone else to lose. I was hardest on you ‘cause yer the very last person I wanna go losin’.”

A weight lifts from his shoulders. [Name]’s eyes shut, exhausted. She touches her temples. “I could’ve done well with hearing that months ago.”

“I’m a little late with this kinda stuff.”

She snorts. “You fucking think?”

“I need you ‘n Ellie in my life,” he says, “or there ain’t no point in goin’ on. I wanna start over. No more bullshit. Just you ‘n me ‘n her, that’s all I want.”

Her hands rest on her hips. After a thoughtful pause, she nods. “That’s what I want too. And no more guessing games. If there’s something you wanna say, then just—fucking spit it out.”

“Alright.”

[Name] collapses back against the chair, thoroughly drained. Joel feels like he’s just run a marathon, but it needed to be done. He’s _happy_ it’s done. If he was a better man, he’d tell [Name] he loves her. 

“Maybe I should go to bed. It’s been...a long fucking day, let alone hour.”

She rises from the chair as he nods, already getting lost in his thoughts, reviewing all that had been discussed and where it puts them now. But right as her hand touches the doorknob and she’s about to say goodbye, he remembers that night: _I wanted so badly for you to invite yourself back to my cabin, make some move._

“Stay,” he says.

She half-turns, an eyebrow raised. A huff of a laugh escapes her. “Joel—“

“‘m serious. St-stay. Here, with me.”

“You don’t have to take pity on me, y’know. I was just saying that...that night—“

“This ain’t me takin’ pity or whatever other excuse you can come up with. I want ya here, prob’ly more than you ever wanted it. I can damn well promise it.”

Still, she hovers. It reminds him of high school. She probably thinks this is some cruel trick or that, maybe, he really does feel bad and wants to make it better. But it isn’t that. Joel isn’t the type to soften up to just anyone. 

Gently, he says, “C’mere, darlin’,” and offers a calloused hand from where he’s seated. She looks at it and then his face and back again before slipping her fingers around his palm. 

Joel tugs her in until she’s sitting beside him. Their knees touch. He stares in her face greedily, as he’s never let himself do in the past. He’s known this face for two years now and he’s never hated seeing it. There hasn’t been a single day when she walked in the room and an overwhelming calm hasn’t passed over him. That’s love, he knows. He knows because he hasn’t had it for decades; it’s a coveted, untouchable thing. But finally—_finally_—it’s here. 

Hand on her cheek, Joel kisses her. He fumbles and it’s awkward but neither of them laugh or make fun. She melts against him as their lips slide together, her hand falling to his chest as she tries to close their distance more and more. It occurs somewhere in the middle that, other than hugging Ellie or killing a clicker or homicidal maniac, this is the closest he’s been to another person. 

His fingers thread through her hair as he tugs her down to the bed. She’s so, so warm, and he’s already needing more. He’s always been so greedy; nothing has ever been good enough. 

“Joel,” she mutters against his mouth. He pulls back and she begins working at the buttons of his flannel, a red flush in her cheeks and her pupils blown wide. There’s a looseness in her mouth that settles in his gut knowing _he_ did that to _her_. It’s obscene, the thoughts running through his head; how he can make it all up to her. 

Everything that’s happened in the past thirty years—the tears and the screams and the heartache and the despair and the distance—seems worth it, now, because at least it brought him here. To her. Tomorrow is a new day and they have so much to worry about and decide, but right now he forgets it all. Finally, he has a family he can be proud of.

Ellie isn’t alone anymore. Now she has her mother.


	5. after (happy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> joel, reader, and ellie enjoy the life they've molded for themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!! i am not quite done with tlou2 but it's safe to say it has wrecked me and i'm just looking for some joel happiness, alright? what's a girl gotta do to have some joy around here? anyway i hope ur all doing well, i haven't posted in a hot minute so i'll shut up and allow u to read this very short but very fluffy ending to one of my favorite fics i've ever written <333

There have been many, many ways [Name] has been woken in the apocalypse: distant gunfire echoing off mountains; raindrops peppering her exposed face; sitting bolt upright from a nightmare; a boot pressed to her throat. But none are quite as memorable as what has become her new normal:

Joel’s lips press to the crown of her head as his arms tighten, pulling her closer. Her eyes slowly blink open, adjusting to the burgeoning sunlight peeking through the sheer curtains. His eyes remain closed, but she knows he’s awake from the huff of his breathing and the gentle sigh he releases once she’s wrapped back around him.

“Mornin’, darlin’” he says.

“Hi,” she sighs. And snuggles in deeper. The slow rise and fall of his chest, gradually, lulls her back to sleep, his calloused fingers twirling and playing through her hair.

The next time she wakes, she’s alone. Joel’s spot is empty, but warm still. Her hand smooths down where he once laid and, eventually, she gets herself up too. She already knows where he’ll be.

He’s pouring himself a cup of coffee at the kitchen island. He’s in drawstring sweatpants and a gray tee. The stretch of the fabric over his broad shoulders and the way the hang onto his biceps…It’s enough to make [Name] wistful. She walks up behind him and slips her arms around his middle, resting her cheek against his spine. Joel doesn’t even startle; he lets out a small chuckle and touches her hands where they sit clasped against his stomach.

“Good mornin’ again, beautiful.”

“Morning to you too,” she says, kissing his back and dragging a hand over his shoulder blades as she stands beside him. His eyes are pulled in a tired way and his hair is a little tousled, and she’s never seen him look more handsome. The graying in his hair and scruff is doing a little too much for her so early in the day.

“How’d ya sleep?”

“Great,” she answers. “Like a rock.”

“It’s nice. Havin’ somewhere to sleep. I don’t miss the forest floor.”

[Name] snorts, letting her hand slip off of him as she goes to grab a mug for herself. “Me neither. Or vents.”

Joel’s chin pulls to his chest as he laughs. “I’m too big for a vent.”

“Benefit of being a dainty woman.”

“Suppose so.”

As she pours herself a coffee and adds some cream and sugar, she can feel Joel’s eyes on her. He does this a few times a day: just…watches. It used to make her self-conscious, make her squirm in her seat, especially when it was before they were together. She would question his motives and feel wrong. Now, she soaks it in and pretends, for his sake, that she doesn’t even notice. (She stares, too.)

“Ellie mentioned wanting to go hunting with us,” she says.

“She don’t wanna hangout with Dina or Jesse?”

[Name] shrugs. “Guess she misses us. Can you believe it?”

Joel smirks. “Teenagers are weird.”

“Definitely,” she says, and crosses the distance to press a finger to his cheek. She’s in love with his smile. “I haven’t kissed you yet today.”

“That’s criminal,” Joel says in his horrifically enticing morning-voice. It’s low and reserved for her. _I’m the only one who gets to hear him like this._ It fills her with warmth to know he’s all hers, and she knows he feels the same vice versa.

Joel slips a hand around her waist and tucks her in until they’re flush against each other. His lips press firm to hers, a slight pressure increasing. Then his other hand loops around and when he kisses her again, their lips are parted and he takes her in deeper. [Name] breathes in sharply through her nose, holding the side of his neck and standing on her toes. She’ll never get over how much larger he is.

The front door slams shut and down the hall they hear Ellie: “Ew, ew! C’mon, lovebirds, I don’t wanna be seeing that.”

Reluctantly, [Name] lowers her feet down and steps back from Joel, a little flushed. “Maybe don’t go burstin’ into a person’s home, then,” Joel is saying, an easy smile flirting across his lips. 

“Whatever, old man.” But Ellie is smiling, too. There’s no hiding that she’s happier with them together. “We going hunting or what!”

It isn’t until then that [Name] notices Ellie is fully dressed in hunting gear, backpack slung over her shoulder and freshly-polished bow in hand. She even has Tommy’s sniper strapped to her back. 

“Do we look even remotely ready?” she asks.

Ellie spreads her arms. “Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Chop chop, kids!”

[Name] snickers, and raises an eyebrow in Joel’s direction. She pats his chest as she walks past him. “Joel, control your daughter.”

“He wishes!” Ellie calls after [Name] as she climbs the stairs.

Ten minutes later and [Name] is ready to go. She could hear Joel and Ellie talking in the kitchen—Joel ‘mhm’-ing as Ellie’s voice rises and falls with animation as she tells whatever story it happened to be today—and eventually Joel joined [Name] to get ready too. He walks in as she’s hopping into jeans and makes some remark of, “I prefer those off,” then slips off to the bathroom to brush his teeth. [Name] returns downstairs to Ellie, who’s sketching in a journal at the dining room table.

“How’s Dina?”

“Good,” says Ellie.

[Name] crosses her arms, hip against the doorframe. “How are you two doing?”

“Ugh. This is almost as worse as seeing you and Joel making out.”

She ruffles Ellie’s hair. “I’ll assume you’re both doing well.”

“You’d be right. Now shut up.” Ellie snaps the journal shut. As she slips it back in her bag, she asks, “Does this mean I’m allowed to ask how you and Joel are? Although from that kiss…”

“We’re good, Ellie.”

Ellie nods. “Good. I’m glad. I was getting sick of watching you two dance around each other.”

“I think you and all of Jackson.”

“You girls ready?” Joel claps his hands together. Backpack slung over shoulder, jeans and jacket on. He tried and failed to tame his hair. “You lead the way, kiddo, since you’re so eager to go.”

Ellie jumps up from the chair. “I was thinking we could head up to that ridge Tommy’s been telling me all about and try sniping any Infected, maybe find some deer.”

“I wanna go at that sniper.”

“Oh, no, old man, you get your own—“

“Scared I’ll get more of ‘em than you?”

“You’re ON!”

[Name] hangs back and lets the two of them walk ahead of her. Joel jostles Ellie’s shoulder and she returns him with a shove. Then his arm drapes across her shoulders and he tries hustling her hair as she tries squirming from his grip, yelling at him to fuck off.

They’ve come a long way from where they all started. [Name] has lost a lot. So has Joel. So has Ellie. It’s hurt like hell and she hates to think back on some of those days, but she’d do it all over again if given the chance. She’d go through the grief and the pain—in and out—to get _here_:

The love of her life opening the front door of their shared house, the dawning sun pouring bright light over his and their daughter’s silhouettes, as she watches, grateful to just be by their sides.


	6. after (sad)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (TLOU2 SPOILERS)  
with everyone still grieving joel, tommy comes to reader and joel's house to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want nothing but the best for joel but i couldn't help writing a more grim end to this series. ive been having a rough month, so it was weirdly cathartic to channel that into some grief and let my emotions out through one of the greatest characters ever: joel miller. i miss him, but i'm happy we had him at all.

Joel’s place is quiet.

With the door shut behind her, [Name] lets her chest rattle with a suppressed sob. It’s been the longest week of her life and she wouldn’t repeat its events for anything in the world. Each morning she wakes to phantom arms wrapped around her. The weight of them, the smell of his fading cologne, the scratch of his scruff on her bare shoulder—it all feels cruelly real. It isn’t until she turns over to reach out to him, lay on his chest, that she realizes what it is their love has become: a ghost.

It aches. Really, truly aches like a fever. It shakes her body. She has never quite known a grief like this.

This has been their shared house for almost a year, but it’s Joel’s, through and through. He’s a simple man, but he has left his mark in each room and she knows it’ll stay that way for years to come. From his guitars to his coffee mugs to the horse and ranch paintings on the wall. It’s so authentically Joel that it seems to be the only place in the world she can take a full breath. A shrine to Joel he has unknowingly built for after he’d be gone.

It’s been a long, trying day. Joel is to be buried tomorrow morning. It’s approaching midnight now, the shadows creeping in, and [Name] wishes they could finally swallow her whole. _Just get it over with._ She, Tommy, and Maria spent the afternoon settling on the right spot for Joel’s gravesite and all the other matters she spaced out for while the married couple signed papers and got it all done. Maria had a hand laid on [Name]’s shoulder the entire time.

Ellie has been absent for all of it.

Despite the loss and the pain and the tragedy, that’s what hurts most and that’s what she keeps asking a god she doesn’t believe in: _Why—why—would you let her witness that? What did she do to deserve seeing him that way?_ As much as it would cripple her, [Name] would give anything in the world to go back and take Ellie’s place. Her imagination has already been cruel to her, but it’s Ellie who has to go to sleep every night with that final image of Joel in her head. [Name] would walk the ends of the earth to take that away from her.

No daughter should have to see their father like…that. Tommy came to the house the night after, a little tipsy. _I can’t do it, [Name]. Seeing Joel all…destroyed. His fucking head was caved in—_

And that’s where [Name] made him stop. She was getting nauseous and hung her head between her knees. She wanted to scream until her throat was raw. The mere idea of it made her want to crawl out from her skin and hide. It felt like being ripped apart piece by piece. A flaying.

Still. She’d rather sit with a destroyed Joel imprinted on her brain than have Ellie deal with it. That’s what a mother would want.

There’s a knock. 

[Name] debates letting whoever it is think nobody is home, but it comes again, and then the door just opens. She hadn’t even thought to lock it, stupidly.

Tommy’s gait gives him away before his silhouette even appears in the kitchen’s doorway. She’s never thought they look alike, except one time on patrol out with them. They had been walking ahead of her, side by side, and the line of the shoulders and the cowboy walk had been so identical. 

But ever since Joel’s death, all she can see is his big brother in Tommy’s face. Sometimes it hurts to look at him. 

“Sorry to intrude,” he says, “but I thought ya’d want to hear this. I just got back from Ellie’s.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“Did she talk to ya about it?”

“No,” says [Name]. She leans her elbows against the island. Her eyes have that heaviness of constant crying, making her always exhausted. Even her voice is lower, still adjusting to a life where Joel isn’t there to hear her. “I just know how she operates.”

Tommy presses the toe of his boot against the ground. The bags under his eyes are brutal. He looks how she feels. “She promised a day for me to think about it. Maria…she’ll be pissed. She won’t let her go, I know that already.

A shrug. Her eyes are glued to a spot on the wall. “Ellie’ll find a way.”

“I know. That’s what I’m worried about.”

“There’s no talking Ellie out of it, so I don’t know why you’re bothering to come to me. Once she sets her mind to something, nothing gets in her way.” _She’s Joel’s daughter, after all,_ she can’t help thinking, but refuses to say aloud. The wound is still too fresh.

“I’m not here to ask any favors from ya.” Tommy huffs, and steps into the room. He has one hand fisted on his hip, the other planted on the island. “I’m leavin’ tonight.”

[Name]’s eyes finally leave the wall. She stares into Tommy’s tired eyes, and seeing Joel staring back. It takes a moment for her to find her voice: “You are?”

“I am. Figured you should know. I want ya to keep Ellie from comin’ after me.”

“Ellie won’t be able to take losing her uncle, too.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, [Name].”

“You know exactly what I mean.” She stands straighter. “You have no idea what’s waiting out there for you.

“Ellie thinks I’m gonna talk to Maria and no matter what we’re goin’. What she doesn’t know is that, really, no matter what, _I’m_ goin’. Ellie is too young and too…” He rubs a hand over his beard. “She don’t need to become that person. She don’t need to become Joel.”

A muscle clenches in [Name]’s jaw. That’s unfair.

Tommy continues on: “I’m goin’. Alone.”

“You sound just like her,” says [Name] with a bitter laugh. She crosses her arms tightly and stares him down. She prays to channel every ounce of sternness in Maria’s body and strike some semblance of fear into him. “You’re going to die. I can promise you. They’re not the type of group you can just dismantle. You’re one man, and they are a well-oiled machine. I’ve dealt with them—trust me, I know.”

“You’re not comin’, [Name].”

“Why the hell not?” It isn’t until the words come out that [Name] even realizes that’s where she was going with this.

“Ellie can’t lose her uncle? What about her mother?”

“Don’t you dare…”

“You’re angry ‘cause you know I’m right. There’s no replacin’ you. Me? My death will be a little easier to handle.”

“That’s cruel, Tommy. She loves you. She trusts you.”

“You need to stay here to make sure she don’t go. It’s bad enough I’m goin’, but how will she be able to stay knowin’ that we are both out there? She just won’t. If it’s just me, maybe you can talk some sense into her—“

“That’s not gonna happen, and you know it.”

“Then what? You come with and we both die?”

“If you won’t take me, then I go on my own. I know how to sneak out of Jackson, too, Tommy. So then you, me, and Ellie will all be out there and we’ll all be alone getting killed.”

“Jesus Christ…” Tommy slaps the island and plants his hands on his hips, slowly pacing. His head hangs. “I don’t like this, [Name]. This is the easiest way.”

“There is no easy way. Face it.”

The silence is thick. [Name] wishes he hadn’t come. She’s known Ellie was going after them ever since it happened, but this is…Just to hear it and know that, no matter what, something _will_ come of this tightens the knot in her stomach even more. Whether it’s just Tommy and Ellie or all three of them or just Tommy, something terrible will happen.

“Fuckin’ figures,” says Tommy lowly, “that even in death he’s startin’ fights.”

“He has his ways.”

“He sure do.” Tommy pivots on his heel. “Fine. We both go. I’m leavin’ a note with Maria. Maybe she can…hold Ellie off. Jesus, I can’t believe I’m lettin’ any of this happen, but…I need them gone and dealt with.”

[Name] swallows. Her throat feels bruised from screaming into the pillow late at night. “Gimme an hour to get prepped. I’ll meet you by the western gate. I know somewhere we can slip out there. In the meantime you can write to your wife.” _Perhaps the last thing she’ll ever hear from you._

“One hour,” promises Tommy. And he sees himself out.

The WLF. [Name] wants them all eradicated, of course, but truthfully she never saw herself going after them. It’s what Joel would’ve done for her, so why didn’t she even come to think of it? She’s been so wrapped up in her numbing grief that she didn’t think of what came after. Joel’s gone: now what? 

To be perfectly honest, she imagined withering away. It’s the pathetic answer, but it’s the truth. Just laying in the grass and letting the earth claim her as it has everything else. Meanwhile Tommy and Ellie have been plotting their vengeance. Did they love Joel more? Really—how can you measure love? And does it truly help to compare different experiences of love? Ellie lost her father. Tommy lost his brother. Each of them knew and loved Joel, but it was in different ways. 

And as his lover, how much did [Name] love him? So much that instead of anger or action, she’d been choosing to simply cease. That isn’t living, and it isn’t what Joel would’ve wanted for her. Why bother being alive if you do nothing with it?

She doesn’t want revenge. She wants to sleep. She wants Joel. But she’ll help the two most important people in her life handle their love in their own ways. Because she knows, no matter what, Ellie is coming after them. Because she loves _them_.

But when will it stop?


End file.
